A few months ago, my life came full circle when I was one of five ‘Sharks’ on Shark Tank Bangladesh. I left the country as a poor child because my parents saw opportunity in the United States, and I’ve come back as an expatriate at the top tier of media, business and financial success.
In the intervening five decades, a number of challenges shaped the course of my life. I’m an immigrant born into extreme poverty who arrived in my new home speaking no English. I attended 10 schools growing up, was surrounded by crime as a child and faced racism as a young adult.
As a CEO, you undoubtedly feel pride in overcoming personal and professional challenges through sheer grit and determination. But as I hope to show you through a few of my personal stories, you are in fact selling yourself short: those challenges strengthened you and built you into the leader you are today, where you are blessed to be responsible for other people’s livelihoods.
Here are the lessons I’ve pulled from the challenges that punctuated my life. You’ve got yours, too – and I hope you wouldn’t trade them for anything.
Learn your core values
In 1971, Bangladesh had just gained its independence from Pakistan. Despite liberation, extreme poverty was rampant, with many living on less than US$1 a day. Before I was born, my parents had a son who died of pneumonia – an early death that could have been prevented with basic medical care. When I came along a few years later, my parents didn’t want to lose their second child the same way. So my father, an engineer, sought a better opportunity in the United States.
My parents taught me my core values: hard work, personal loyalty and confidence in the future.
Immigrating to the United States didn’t automatically land us on easy street. My parents worked hard at multiple jobs, so I didn’t see them much. We lived lean, moving frequently because the low-income neighborhoods in which we resided had a lot of crime and drugs. We even had break-ins at our homes and cars. Despite the hardships, I’m grateful for that early life, because my parents taught me my core values: hard work, personal loyalty and confidence in the future.
These values kept me away from the drugs and crime of my youth, and were the foundation for professional success. Entrepreneurs are the kind of people who take big steps throughout their lives, even when they’ve seemed scary. That’s because they create the foundations for the values we carry into our roles as leaders, mentors and world-changers. And when times are tough, they are the values we lean on to carry us through.
Know who you are
Great leaders have a strong sense of self-identity. Without it, you’re pushed by the external circumstances of your life and the opinions of those around you. I first learned who I was from my parents. But I had to do it again as a practicing Muslim in the United States right after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
After spending six years defending my adopted country in the Persian Gulf, I returned home to off-color jokes about how I might blow something or someone up – especially on airplanes. Human beings discriminate. It’s a fact of life that we can’t avoid, so the best tool against it is yourself. When I step into a room, I can’t leave behind my identity as an immigrant, a South Asian man and a Muslim – nor would I want to.
But trust can be built regardless of most preconceived notions as long as you bring your skills and your integrity. The good news is that most people will ultimately judge an individual by his character and actions. You don’t have to be defined by your minority status or your perceived disadvantages.
You don’t have to be defined by your minority status or your perceived disadvantages.
Some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs we met on Shark Tank were women, from a country that’s historically struggled with gender inequality. But when these women faced the Sharks, they stood on the strength of their ideas, their tenacity and their leadership.
I played up my own identity on Shark Tank by wearing a cowboy hat. The memorable gesture showed some of my core values and achievements on the international stage: patriotic pride, military service and growing an American company. And it stood out among the suits on the stage.
Maybe your opportunity to embrace your unique identity won’t be as stark as going overseas and waving the flag – alongside the flag of your ancestors. No matter how you do it, remember that your identity is yours, and it is a core part of your success.
What’s your passion?
Through their determination to give me a better life, my parents showed me what it meant to have passion for your goals and to pursue something bigger than yourself. I wasn’t sure what that pursuit would mean for me until the movie Top Gun inspired me to enter the military and give back to the country that had given my family so much. After earning my IT degree, I served three tours in the United States Navy on a guided missile destroyer in the Persian Gulf.
A few years after being honorably discharged, I started my company – TISTA Science and Technology Corporation – to give back in an even bigger way through IT services; employing thousands of people, performing several hundred million dollars in annual revenue and engaging in philanthropic work. It’s important to understand the depth of our passions and what they really mean.
If you have a passion for education, you should consider teaching. But also, consider how you can contribute to mentorship and continuing education programs at the workplace. Or maybe you have a fascination with numbers. You could go into accounting, or channel that passion into developing systems that analyze your firm’s metrics.
Parts of our careers may not align with our passions, but great leaders have a plan to make it happen. You’ve realized your ambitions before, and you can do so over and over again in new and better ways as your passions change.
Your company is bigger than you
When you’re featured on Shark Tank, people tend to treat you like a king. I was even asked to invest in a movie production company in addition to other business initiatives. But my success is not just on my shoulders. It’s been built on my parents’ hard work 50 years ago, and almost 20 years’ worth of hard work and dedication from TISTA’s employees.
There were just three of us to start, with one client, and I had young kids at home. More than once, I wondered how we’d pay the mortgage. I am proud to say the two original employees are still with me, now as company partners.
Sticking together has been the recipe for success, because we all know running a company is about more than our paychecks. That came home to us in 2014, when TISTA grounded 60 employees because the United States government partially shut down. My executive team and I responded by foregoing our salaries and paid time off hours so that these people would not have to worry about how to feed their kids.
Running a company is about more than our paychecks.
In recent years, TISTA has become bigger than our employees and customers. Our social responsibility arm, TISTA Cares, tackles some of the deepest local needs in the Washington, D.C. area. We provided meals to struggling families during the COVID-19 pandemic, we fund a mental health counselor for homeless veterans and also partner with two universities to provide scholarships.
The best successes come to those who put others first. My parents did it for me, and I’m sure you’ve done it for your loved ones. As you grow in your roles as leaders, your world of responsibility and impact will likewise expand – exponentially.
Defining your legacy
The desire to carry on my father’s legacy animates both my personal life and the workings of my company. I named TISTA for the Tista River in Southern Bangladesh, where my father and his ancestors were raised. A river gives life, creates a dynamic ecosystem and makes things fresh and new.
And when I started the company, my father’s only request was that I use my success to help others. His legacy is why I want to give life and energy to the people and places that nourished me, both in the United States and in Bangladesh.
I’ve opened three orphanages in Bangladesh, in part to honor my baby brother. One of our orphanages is in the very village where my father grew up. And we’re just getting started. I hope to build a dedicated girls’ orphanage and potentially a co-ed school. The need is immense, and I will always be motivated to give these children a chance at a better life, just like my parents did for me.
Like coming to a new country and starting with nothing, the lesson for any entrepreneur is to stick it out and forge ahead.
There were a lot of times we didn’t know if we’d be able to keep the doors open, and it was hard to see the path to success. But you have to trust your process and focus on executing your plan rather than get distracted by the frustrations of goals that seem too far away. In the moment, when times are tough, remember the big picture and what you want to leave for those who come after you.
