I built the mirror I needed first.

Five Lights started as one question I couldn't answer about my own life: why did every version of "the plan" (chef, restaurant owner, a string of ventures with Beyza) keep failing for what felt like a different reason each time?

I trained as a chef, ran kitchens, and gave it up, not because I stopped loving food, but because fourteen-hour shifts were stealing time from the person I loved more. I built and dropped half a dozen ventures chasing "the one that works." None of them failed for the reason I thought at the time. They failed because I didn't yet know who I actually was (my real skills, what I genuinely enjoyed, how I could help people, how I actually thrive), so I kept building on guesses instead of on myself. That was the biggest problem, the one causing the most damage. Everything I was chasing on the outside, I'd been looking for in the wrong place. The answers were already inside me. Once I turned inward and started answering honestly, everything else got easier to solve, even the very practical question of where we should live. And that was only the beginning: knowing myself was the start, not the finish. The real work was turning that clarity into steps, goals, and a path forward: the part I built into Five Lights.

Five Lights is what I built once I understood why. It's the instrument I wished I'd had at every one of those forks: real astronomy, real reflection psychology, and a symbolic mirror, fused into one honest Mission Log. Not a horoscope. Not a verdict. A mirror, checked against your own words, that hands you your next step.

Read the full story ↓

Built with Beyza, my partner in this and everything else.

What the Mission Log actually says

"You start things before anyone gives you the go-ahead, and you run several at once… that isn't scatter."

"You lower your own price to keep people comfortable, and it costs you every time."

"In your design there is no such thing as failure, only eliminated hypotheses."

This is a self-reflection tool, not an empirically validated science and not a prediction. Keep what rings true, and leave the rest.

Why this matters to you

Everything you're looking for is already within you. Most people never turn inward, so they build a life on borrowed answers: other people's definitions of success, purpose, and worth. Five Lights is the honest instrument that helps you see yourself clearly: your real strengths, what you genuinely love, how you can contribute, how you personally thrive.

But knowing yourself is only the beginning. From there, Five Lights becomes the companion that turns insight into motion: helping you set real goals and deadlines, draw the path that leads to them, and build the skills, tools, and people you'll need to walk it. Not a one-time reading. A life companion for the whole journey inward and forward.

The full story

I've been obsessed with cooking since I was a kid. While my friends watched cartoons, I watched Jamie Oliver, Anthony Bourdain, and Gordon Ramsay. I was cooking at home by age 10. I wanted to open a restaurant. For a while I even wanted to be a doctor, specifically a neurosurgeon, but once I got to high school I realized I wasn't someone who loved studying that hard, and the chef dream pulled me back.

Instead of culinary school, I studied business and economics at university. I already knew cooking alone wouldn't be enough for me long-term, so I chose that path deliberately. After graduating, I went on to study Professional Culinary Arts and Food & Beverage Management at MSA. I worked in kitchens for a while.

Then I met Beyza. We fell in love. And somewhere in the middle of those long kitchen shifts, I realized I couldn't see her as much as I wanted to, that I missed her constantly, and that chasing this dream wasn't worth the time it cost us together. The restaurant industry is brutal: you work hardest exactly when everyone else is on vacation. Everything has to be flawless; one small mistake can undo an entire service. Fourteen-to-seventeen-hour days are normal, and I lived plenty of those.

After I let go of the kitchen dream, I gave myself time to figure out what was next. I took courses in digital marketing, entrepreneurship, sales, consulting business models, agency-building. I attacked it from every angle, tried several different projects. Beyza and I wanted to build something together. I tried a number of ventures. At some point I started to feel pretty discouraged.

That's when I realized I needed to turn inward, not into another course or another project, but into the actual question underneath all of them: who am I, really? What am I actually good at? What do I enjoy enough to do for decades? How do I help people, how do I make things better for them, and how do I thrive instead of just surviving? None of my ventures had failed because the idea was bad. They failed because I didn't yet know the answers to those questions, so I kept building on guesses instead of on myself.

In the process of answering them honestly, I came back to astrology. And then something clicked: I could keep changing projects forever and hit the same wall every time, because the projects were never the actual problem. The biggest problem, the one causing the most damage, was that I didn't truly know myself. Everything I'd been chasing on the outside, I'd been looking for in the wrong place. The answers were already inside me; I just hadn't turned inward to find them. Once I did, everything else got easier to solve, including the very practical question of where we should even live.

After research, we decided Canada was the right fit for us. (We later noticed, half-joking, that Canada showed up in my own astrocartography chart for growth, expansion, and abundance.) We moved. I enrolled in Business Insight & Data Analytics to sharpen the tools I'd need to make my ventures work; Beyza went into Marketing Management. Together, we'd be able to build things, and more importantly, never have to be apart to do it.

The idea for Five Lights had actually been in my head 3-4 years before we ever moved to Canada. I just hadn't started building it. But once I'd solved the real problem, the inward one, everything else started falling into place on its own. The move, the new fields of study, the doors that opened: none of those were the fix. They were what became possible after the fix. When you finally know yourself, the outside stops being a wall and starts being a road.

And knowing myself was only the beginning. The harder, better part came next: turning that clarity into actual steps, real goals, deadlines, a path forward, and the skills and people I'd need to walk it. That's the part I wish I'd had a companion for. That's the part I built into Five Lights.

And here we are. Beyza and I, in our own home, with our sweet pup Luka, building a beautiful life together, and building Five Lights: the instrument I wish I'd had years earlier. Not just one that answers who am I, really, but one that stays with you afterward, and helps you walk the road that answer opens. My hope is that Five Lights can touch everyone's life the way it's touched mine, and carry them forward, to the stars, and beyond.

Luka: quality control, moral support, occasional keyboard supervisor.

Everyone is made of starlight. I built the tool that shows you which light is yours.