HLP Allies | Interview with Erden Tuzunkan

Executive Coach, Entrepreneur, Purpose Activator

In the HLP Allies series, we spotlight leaders who lead with purpose. Leaders who choose clarity over noise, presence over pressure, and allyship over ego. Leaders who uplift others simply by being who they are.

This week, I am honored to introduce Erden Tuzunkan. Recognized as LinkedIn’s Top Voice in Entrepreneurship, Erden supports entrepreneurs who feel stuck and helps them reconnect with meaning, clarity, and momentum. After building and successfully exiting four companies, he made a different kind of move. He chose to stop chasing and start aligning. He began building a life around what truly matters.

In one of his posts, he writes, “Great training is not about dumping knowledge. It is about embedding it.” That line reflects more than learning. It reveals how Erden sees leadership. It is not about knowing more. It is about living better.

Today, Erden is a coach, a board member, and a father of three. His reflections on parenting are especially powerful. He speaks about how becoming a father changed his understanding of leadership, how it reshaped his sense of purpose, and how he now sees his greatest impact beginning at home. That’s a question so often asked of mothers, but here is a man who openly acknowledges that change begins at home.

This interview is more than a simple Q and A. Each answer is a lesson. Each metaphor a mirror. Think of it as a free coaching session you didn’t know you needed. We talked about burnout, alignment, trust, parenting, and purpose. And yes, somehow there is a ping pong ball and a quote from Jim Carrey in there too.

Let’s dive in.

From Burnout to Breakthrough. A Conversation with Erden Tuzunkan

Erden Tuzunkan

HLP:

I have recently started consulting startups, especially around process and strategy, and that is one reason your story really excites me. You have built and exited four companies, which sounds like the perfect career path on paper. But you have also said you felt lost during it. What made you stop and ask yourself what success really meant?

Erden:

Have you visited the woods recently? If you hike and navigate through the densely packed trees, you will eventually come across a small river that flows so loudly it brings a sense of quiet to your heart, body, and soul. (Hint: If there happens to be a waterfall nearby, the sound will be even more powerful and captivating! 😊) Then comes a moment, a moment when all the sounds, the voices, the foamy wave crashing—pile on top of each other. And your ears want to stop hearing. Your skin wants to stop feeling. But that silence gives birth to a rebellion. Because nothing in nature can stay silent forever. One day, the external noise becomes so loud that you say: "I want to hear myself. Just myself."

That was me. The noise had gotten so loud, emails, routine meetings, my constantly blinking phone, the constant urge to put out fires at work like a heroic firefighter. I wanted to listen to myself. I wanted to hit life’s mute button. And I did.

You know that scene in The Matrix when Morpheus offers Neo the red and blue pills and says, “Whichever you choose, there’s no turning back”? Like Neo, I chose the red pill. In other words, I chose freedom. The lion described in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, on the path to becoming a child (Übermensch). The journey of breaking free from my “Persona” as Carl Gustav Jung described, and facing my shadow.

Long story short I watched a lot of Jim Carrey growing up. Laughed at his movies. Who would’ve thought that one day, his words would resonate with me too like a spark of hope hidden in the laughter and I would live them out, word for word? “I wish everyone could get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that's not the answer.” Jim Carrey

HLP:

On LinkedIn, you describe your mission as helping paralyzed entrepreneurs find meaning and clarity. What does that look like in your work, and why do you think so many high achievers end up feeling that way?

Erden:

Have you ever heard the concept of “Dark Triad” in Psychology? It’s a psychological grouping proposed by the Canadian psychologists Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams in 2002. Practically, “Dark Triad” means the cluster of three negative personality traits: Machiavellianism, subclinical (nonpathological) narcissism, and psychopathy.

In the exactly same sense, let me reveal the “Dark Triad” of High Achievers: Wealth, Fame, Power. They desire to be wealthy, famous, and powerful. We ask those people every possible (absurd, curious, shortcut-seeker) question, but one simple question remains unquestioned: WHY?

Why do you desire to be wealthy, famous, and powerful? I tell you the unspoken truth of most high-achievers (I’ll use we, because more or less I was one of them). We seek external approval. We crave external validation. We need to be praised at every possible time & occasion how “magnificent” we are. Because we lack internal approval. We are not in peace with our past. We are afraid what we see inside of us. As we are aware of our flaws but not signed with them an act, we try to avoid them.

What’s the “first-born” idea to avoid them: We believe that if we become rich, famous, and powerful, nobody is going to notice our flaws. We’ll get high appreciation, as we’ll be in line with societal expectations. Bingo.

At first, we get the (external) approval. Next, a giant void inside. Like my 7-year-old son eating a slice of bread. He doesn’t like the outer crunchy shell; hence, he eats only the inner soft bread parts. Final picture: A still bread-looking structure with a gigantic hollow inside.

HLP:

You speak a lot about alignment, which I find truly inspiring. When someone comes to you feeling burned out or stuck, where do you begin with them?

Erden:

“Questions unite people, answers divide them.” This is what Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel told us. I ask questions. The questions that I would ask my a-couple-of-years-younger-self.

What’s the most practical way of making someone trust you? I can hear many different opinions. Probably, you, all, are right. But, the most practical way is to make them speak freely and uninterrupted. We, human beings, are created to talk about ourselves. This is what raises our self-image. As long as we find a partner who listens, not to talk, and not to accumulate his bullets in his mind but simply listens, learns, and stays curious, we build trust in him.

This is exactly the time interval in which our brain (namely hypothalamus) secretes oxytocin, a hormone, the ultimate alignment/bonding hormone. When a mother is breastfeeding her baby, the same hormone is pumped out in the baby’s brain to align with her mother and to build trust. This is where I begin.

HLP:

Many of your insights focus on trust, clarity, and showing up with intention. Why do you think these ideas are resonating so deeply with leaders today?

Erden:

This is the era of glorifying “being busy.” The harder you push, the more successful you’ll be. This is the 21st century: The century of “Think fast, act fast.” No. To be exact, “Don’t think at all, just be quick and act no matter what.” This is the century that we live in.

Leaders today are feeling an intimidating craving in their gut. Just, they are mostly incapable of “naming the game.” They take the pills, proton-pump inhibitors, and start to strive for more again.

A friend of mine, a businessman working with more than 300 employees, once told me: “I produce millions of metal parts every year, make millions of dollars a year, but I’m not able to create a single, one unique, original idea. I’m like a ping-pong ball played by customers and employees.” As a ping-pong match, the ball is on one side and the next second, it’s on the other side.

Hence, this phenomenon (of today’s leaders) piles up as a three-legged pillar:

1. At any given second, there is no clarity on where the ping-pong ball exactly is. (Quick tip for engineers: Recall Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle! 😊)

2. As you are a ping-pong ball controlled mainly by customers or your employees, you are mostly unable to show up with intention. You dance with the blowing wind like a loose leaf.

3. Because of the first two reasons (as you are not clear what to do next, and you are not acting or deciding at your own pace, will, or intention), you don’t trust anyone, and you are not perceived as a trustworthy leader.

Those leaders who started to look for the WHY, why do these phenomena happen, are therefore lured to these discussions immediately.

HLP:  

In your post about fractional executives, you made such an important point about setting expectations early. What have you learned about boundaries and ownership that applies to any leadership role?

Erden:

By definition, expectation is the only determining parameter for the level of happiness in any kind of relationship: professional, family, or romance. If the result of any action is below your expectations, you become unhappy, if not frustrated. Hence, for a leader who aims for sustainable professional relationships among stakeholders, the top-of-the-list competence should be the ability of expectation-setting.

If you set the bar too high, you are doomed to fail or perceived to have failed. If you place the bar too low, you either stagnate or you are not considered as a top performer. For a fractional leadership role, this fact is even worse. As you are not a long-term or full-time leader for that role, you are expected to perform quickly and impactful. If you overpromise, you fail. If you underpromise, you won’t get the leadership role.

My rule of thumb is:

1. Think first, act later.

2. Say what you’ll do. And do exactly what you have told.

   
   

HLP:

You are now an executive coach, but you also have a strong background in corporate governance, IT audit, and capital markets. How has that structured and analytical foundation shaped the kind of coach and leader you are today?

Erden:

Basically, I consider myself a polymath. One-liner: I try to discover how we act, behave, think, decide, and feel. Share what I’ve found out to create a greater good. That’s what I do.

This requires me to have deep knowledge of

• Psychology

• Management

• Human Brain

• Biology

• The economy and how money is created, and how money flows

• Communication

• Rhetoric

• Sociology

• Spirituality

• Engineering

• Information Technology

• Data Science

• Leadership

I love welding social sciences into natural sciences to come up with a unique concept. I’m even more delighted that these unique concepts are transformative, intentional, and nurture wellbeing. Polymaths like the ones in the past who revolutionized their centuries: Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, Descartes, Avicenna, Newton, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Al-Biruni, Nietzsche, Pablo Picasso, and Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

HLP:

You introduced the LENS method as a way to help quieter team members feel seen. I believe it is also a powerful tool for women leaders who often deal with being overlooked. What inspired you to create that method, and how do you help foster cultures where everyone has a voice?

Wonderful question. Great point to underline. Everyone has an idea, and I believe that every idea deserves to be communicated freely. This is also valid for the business world. As you have noticed very precisely, women leaders are being still overlooked. I have to say that we’ve done a huge sprint in the last decades in making women leaders’ voices echo more and more in the upper-floor meeting rooms. Yet, it’s not enough.

What I don’t want is to repeat all the familiar speeches about existing women's and men's inequities. Maybe we keep it for another interview. But let me mention a very striking and surprising scientific fact about the human brain: the female and male brain.

In men, IQ correlates with gray matter volume in the frontal and parietal lobes; whereas in women, IQ correlates with gray matter volume in the frontal lobe and Broca’s area, which is involved in language, suggesting that men and women use different brain areas to achieve a similar IQ. (Cosgrove et al., 2007)

In layman's terms, relatively, women become smarter and smarter if they are allowed to speak freely (Broca’s area), whereas men become smarter if they are allowed to touch objects freely and if they are given enough time to assess inputs from other senses to combine them into a useful action (parietal lobe).

That’s why utilizing the LENS Method for women leaders is an incredibly strong move for attaining success, productivity, and impact. The LENS Method includes the following elements in general:

L – Look for Subtle Signs

E – Elevate Their Voice

N – Name the Pattern

S – Shift the Dynamics

So, according to science, if you desire your business, community, or family to thrive, let women leaders climb up the corporate ladder and let them speak freely and intentionally.

HLP: You give me a lot to think and work on.

My next question is about parenthood. You are a father of three. How has parenthood changed your relationship with work, time, and the kind of leadership you want to model?

Erden:

It didn’t change; it transformed my life completely. 😊 If you have already built some self-awareness notion in you, having children makes you question 3 things:

1. What’s important to me?

2. What can I sacrifice in life: how deep and how long?

3. Until you have children, you are the “boss” leader. From that point on, you are a “servant” leader. How can I make this transition phase smooth and not traumatic?

4. 
   

What children made me realize is that the ultimate best leadership that I can show is the leadership for my family, by my family, and on my family.

Everyone has heard something about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, right? Did you know that there is a modernized, academic version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? In 2010, one group of psychologists attempted to modernize Maslow's hierarchy (Kenrick et al., 2010). While the original hierarchy had five levels, this upgraded version has seven. Perhaps the most shocking alteration was the elimination of the original version's top levels, namely self-actualization.

So, what replaces self-actualization at the top of the updated hierarchy? Parenting earns the top slot. Now. Grab a coffee, take a deep breath, and think again: What makes life worth it for you?

HLP:

That’s revolutionary! For someone reading this who feels tired or disconnected or unsure of what is next, what would you tell them as a first step toward breakthrough?

Erden:

Pause, think, and look inside. Whatever you are looking for, whether it is success, happiness, peace or self-actualization, it is not buried in the outside world. It’s inside. Covered with dust, buried deep and unnoticed. Go for it.

Start asking yourself those three questions:

1. What legacy do you want to leave behind?

2. What is standing in the way of your change?

3. Every journey starts with one step, which is going to be?

Pretty good start for reaching clarity, don’t you think?

HLP:

And one of my favorite questions. If you could sit down with your younger self, just starting out in this journey, what would you say to him?

Amazing question. Thank you for asking.

Here’s my humble speech to my younger version:

1. Your dreams are yours alone. No one will care about your dreams as much as you do. Achieving them requires self-sustaining belief and inner motivation.

2. Many believe wealth or status will quiet their inner demons, but it only masks them temporarily.

3. You are born twice. First is when your mother gave birth to you. Second is when you find out exactly what you live for.

4. A flawless life is lifeless. Challenges are life’s way of teaching and renewing. Smile when they arrive. They’re part of the journey.

5. Don’t fight emotional battles. Focus on the present and avoid revenge or conflict. Engaging emotionally only drains you, even if you "win."

Thank you, Erden, for sharing your story with such honesty, clarity, and heart. Reading your words feels less like scrolling and more like pausing to breathe. This was not just an interview. It was a masterclass in reflection. A reminder that burnout is not failure. It is often the signal that we are ready to grow into something deeper.

Your thoughts on parenting stood out in the most meaningful way. You reminded us that leadership is not just about goals or growth. It is about who we choose to become in the everyday moments. You showed us that raising a family and raising your own awareness are deeply connected, and that the legacy we leave often starts at the kitchen table, not in the meeting room.

From building companies to building meaning, your journey continues to light the way for many. We are grateful to have you in the HLP Allies circle.

And to anyone still reading, go back and take notes. This one is worth returning to.

You can learn more about Erden and his work at healthyofficehabits.com, or connect with him directly on LinkedIn.