Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to “Spread Love in Organizations”, a podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love.
I am Naji, your host, joined today by Afaline Belisario, a leader who bridges East and West, technology and the human condition, and past and present. Born and raised in Tehran, in a family with its feet in the past and its head in the future, she led a successful career in high tech and international business in the U.
S. After earning her PhD from MIT. But writing had always been her passion. Having written professionally in pre revolutionary Iran, she has published in major papers, including the Boston Globe and an essay, Movies with My Aunt, as part of the anthology, Love and Pomegranates. Today, she mentors startups, teaches, and writes about the clash between tradition and modernity and how the past can shed light on our technology fueled future.
A music lover, she is also a Cambridge Chamber Ensemble Board member and writes for their newsletter as well as on Medium. Afarine continues to discover new destinations globally. It’s a great pleasure to host you and have you with me today.
Afarin Bellisario: Thank you very much. It’s a great pleasure and honor to be on your podcast and speak with yourself and your audience.
Naji Gehchan: First, I’d love to hear more about your personal story. We’ve met through MIT Sandbox, where you mentor. I know you’re passionate about startups, but I really want to start with your personal story, from your childhood in Iran to high tech business to now being an author, teacher, mentor. What’s in between the lines of this great, inspiring journey of yours?
Afarin Bellisario: Well, first and foremost is that, uh, MIT Sandbox. I am, um, uh, I’m curious. I just want to know. I, I, I am, I learn, I yearn to learn and I yearn to, uh, interact with people and I’m not afraid of change. And that’s a good thing for, um, um, and at heart, at least. Entrepreneur. I mean, I work for big corporation, but I always have been.
And how they enter entrepreneurial or entrepreneurial if you like, uh, kind of, uh, position within those, those companies. Um, my story, of course, begins in Iran. I grew up in a family that, uh, and the mom was just telling me that, oh, there are parts of, uh, Iranians who, uh, will always, you know, the people, my, my age, a lot of them who are born in North Tehran, for example, they know nothing about the South Tehran, but.
I was fortunate where my grandparents, for example, were traditional people living in Bazaar. My grandfather was a merchant and my, um, but my father was a university professor. He was a doctor. My aunts, um, you know, everybody was educated. So we all moved to North Tehran, if you will. We, we were in the traditional part of Tehran and then we moved north towards more westernized, more modern Tehran.
And of course, you know, uh, more, um, secular is the same, same thing with lots of American movies and American, um, books and things like that. So I was fortunate to have my feet, one foot in one side, one foot in another, because I can understand the problems of this. This, um, this difference will, will, will create, uh, I know, for example, ladies who worked in North Tehran, in North Tehran, you have to be, um, you know, look like somebody who stepped out of a Bloomingdale’s or Harold’s or whatever.
And in South Tehran, people were, women were expected to wear, Uh, headscarf. And so therefore it is very, very different, um, different way of life, different way of everything. And, you know, uh, there were ladies who wanted to, um, to, to, to get ahead in life and they went to school and stuff and, um, maybe get a job in North Tehran in some of these, uh, beautiful glass, uh, office buildings.
But, um, And I know that for a fact. So they would leave their house because women in Iran lived with their parents. They leave their house, um, you know, with their scarf and a very long skirt and no makeup and something in their route to their office. They would be transformed. It’s sort of like a, almost like a Superman, but that would transform.
And it wasn’t that they wanted to be deceptive, but, uh, but that’s also explains what happened later on in Iran, because it’s, um, you know, so, so I started there and, um, I, my mind is like a sip. I mean, I, my memory, I mean, I, all the people were talking about, I was, uh, I would listen to everybody. I would just, you know, record all the stories in my mind and I would make stories.
I would change the stories that my grandma said and modernize it and things of that sort. But when it, when it, when I grew up, when I went to high school, it was clear that You know, uh, making a living with the writing is not something that, uh, one can do without, uh, sacrificing their, um, a lot of their principles.
And I wasn’t about to do that, and I was lucky enough to have a, um, to be very good in math. And, uh, you know, so I said, okay, I’m gonna, and this is not, I’m not the only one. A lot of people. Uh, a lot of, um, intellectuals in Iran have done that. They have a day job where they do whatever that there is that they do.
And at nighttime, they go and, and write books. So I was, I planned to do that. So at some point in my life, and now, you know, things change. I am, you know, the Iran was, uh, very tumultuous, uh, I, uh, Um, you know, uh, coming to United States to study, and I went to New York University, and then I, uh, transferred to MIT, and, you know, uh, sort of, uh, then the revolution happened, and that’s another story.
One of, one of these days I will write about that, because I was here, uh, when hostages were taken. And of course it was sort of, I
finished my PhD job and I said, okay, it’s here. Whatever. Then, uh, um, you know, uh, um, like many young people, um, I wanted a family. I wanted a husband, I want children. Uh, so it’s a, it’s sort of, I said, okay, well food here, maybe someday, but in my, in my heart of hearts, I knew that, uh, my life. And I was very lucky again that I started here.
I didn’t go back. I can, um, spend some time there and, and then he started my life like my father did. And that’s in America, as you know, better than I do. When, when you go to work here, you work full time and then you have a young family and there’s no evening hours to write anything. And of course, uh, English is not my native language, so, um, I had to learn a lot of vocabularies, you know, sentences, things like that.
And of course I read. I read, but I read everything. I read good stuff, bad stuff, whatever, whatever comes along. Um, so it’s a long story, but Eventually, I got to a point where my kids were were older and gone, and I had a chance to not work full time. And at that point in time, I said, Okay, I’m going to do consulting, I’m going to do mentoring, because I really and truly believe in, in sandbox and you have gone through that as well.
And you know how How useful that is to a lot of engineers and and students. So, you know, I said, this is my life. I mean, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna spend more time in corporate America, which is wonderful when you are doing it. But, you know, and then I started writing and I, of course, you know, like everybody else, the first things first version wasn’t very good.
But I used my mentorship and my entrepreneurial spirit. I said, I’m gonna have people read it and people read the first chat first version. And everyone says a wonderful story. You got it right. You got it right. And then of course, you know, version two and three and four and five and As entrepreneurs, we all know that the passion and the inspiration is one percent, and then the hard work and sweat is 99.
Um, so here we are.
Naji Gehchan: I, I love that. And your book, uh, your book’s name is Silence Whispers.
Afarin Bellisario: Yes.
Naji Gehchan: And I’d love to, um, I’d love for you to tell us more about, uh, about the book. Uh, I have obvious questions about, is it fictional? Is it your story, a story of other women? So I’d love to hear your version of in between the lines of this book.
Uh, before we dig more into, uh, some leadership questions also, uh, I have for you, uh, with your, Leadership.
Afarin Bellisario: Absolutely. So the book, well, as I said, I’m a very curious person when I first started. Uh, having a little time to myself. Um, I looked at, uh, you know, the question of what happened in Iran has always been in my mind and also we are technologists.
I was in the first generation of the smartphones. I was one of the people who are evangelizing it from, from, uh, from standpoint of, I don’t know, technology, uh, you know, uh, as you have time to pause and, uh, my good friend, um, uh, you know, there are Many, many professors at, at Sloan, uh, Professor Ancona, for example, who writes about, uh, taking a pause, you know, take a pause, think about it.
And, and, uh, so I had a chance to take a pause and say, okay, what happened in Iran? And what happened in Iran, if you look at the modernization, you know, middle of the 18th century, 19th century, this was a, Truly backward country between two different empires, you know, one from the North Russians and one from the East, you know, British Empire, which was, of course, in India, and then the other side of it, the rest of Iran was Ottoman Empire, which was crumbling and, you know, it’s a segment of Europe.
Um, and of course, Germans were very much involved in it, and the colonial power were very much involved with Ottomans. So, Iran was sort of being squeezed from all sides, from other sides. So, Iran had no choice but modernize to try to defend itself, try to stay a sovereign nation. So technology came to Iran, science and modernity.
And the way it came to Iran was by a lot of students went outside and they studied and, you know, foreigners came to Iran and started businesses and some Iranians started businesses, you know, factories, things like that. But with this modernity came modern ideas and secure. secular laws, uh, right of women, you know, women can’t be, uh, confined to the home and the chador.
And Iranian women, uh, historically have been brazen enough. And so, uh, they became even more brazen. Uh, and, uh, so we, we had the, the, I think that the tipping point point was the Early 20th century when you had a very weak central government and that, you know, they started a constitutional monarchy. But then, you know, of course, World War One happened, Iran was being violated from left and right.
Eventually, Reza Shah came to power, Pahlavi dynasty started. But that 20th century, years, give or tell. And I, you know, I did a lot of studies. Again, research is what I, what I know how to do. I, that’s what Emma taught me. It’s, you gotta do, you gotta look for things. You can have answers for it. You have to hypothesize things.
And so after all of that, I, for a while I was thinking about, and these are very, um, This is an obscure, um, you know, corner of Iranian history from the standpoint of Americans, because, you know, Americans are very interested in 1953 and the coup d’etat and the evolution. They’re not going back far enough, whereas the root of all of these Breakup within, you know, Iranians are of two minds.
One mind wants to be more modern than Americans. One mind wants to be more restricted than Taliban. So, can’t live in the same country. Is it the same country? Is it, um, are we all And the other thing is that I, um, I Started seeing the, the same roots, uh, the same problems, um, in America, because we’re also getting further and further apart from each other.
So as I said, you know, our first idea was to write some, you know, a book, whatever. And then, believe it or not, one morning I woke up with the idea of Gohan, my, my main character, this young woman who is going through this transformative, um, life to transformative country. Um, and that transformations give her some, some chance as well as she can take advantage of that.
So, um, that’s, that was the first. Uh, first, uh, inclination, of course, as I said, uh, uh, then I learned I had mentors and I had teachers, uh, um, I was lucky to work with some of the good ones and I thought how to do, um, um, I learned how to do character development and the plot development. These all came later in the beginning.
I just wanted to tell the story of that time in Iran, uh, through the eyes of this young woman. that I imagined. So, so ask me any question you want.
Naji Gehchan: I, I, I love it. So I’m really, I want to learn more about this woman and how much you relate actually to her in your story. And also you talked about the unfortunate both sides that we’re seeing, the extremes.
That’s it. That we’re seeing all across the world these days. Yes. Yes. So I’d love for you to tell me her story, how you relate to her and how you’re living in a world of more and more extremism on all sides.
Afarin Bellisario: Yes. So number one, let’s just start with Gohar. When I first started to write the letter again and to write this story, I had no idea how to develop a character.
You know, this is a person who does this. That wasn’t good enough. And one of the things that I work with this lady, um, Ellie, uh, Ruben, that’s, um, you know, the two of us, she was both my editor and my mentor, you know, in terms of editing, she never changed anything. She just said, this doesn’t work. Go and change it, but change it in your own voice.
It was a process. Um, you know, sometimes I got angry and she got angry and we almost, uh, you know, but we work together and she’s a wonderful person. And, uh, today we still work together on the sequels, but, uh, the, the. The thing that she told me is that when I, when you develop a character, you gotta sometimes look into yourself.
You know, how would you do? How would you feel? How would you think? And so Gohar, um, you know, shares a lot of characters with me, but she’s not me. She’s a different person. She’s doing things that Gohar will do, not things that I would do. When I, one of the couple of things that we share. Is number one is that, uh, we both very curious.
So she’s curious. She’s always thinking, you know, sure. What, what is about telling me that? So this why is, is there. So it’s for me too. And the other thing is that we share the, I don’t sing. I, my voice is terrible,
but, uh, but I do, but I love music. I,
That also I share with her. So a lot of characters like that, and I share with her, but she’s not the only character in the book, and she’s certainly not Not the only female character in the book. Um, and for that, um, I basically went back and thought of a book that I knew in Iran and, uh, uh, brought out the stories and the way, you know, they, they manners and then they, they, their lives and things like that.
And when I say the book is, Women, it is true. Uh, it’s a fictional story. The, you know, obviously the, the characters don’t exist, didn’t existed, but people like, uh, and we
did exist. So in that case, it is true. Um, now, the other thing that is true, my great grandfather was Russian and he married my great grandmother who is, that is true too, there were lots of Russians who, like the Iranians, who came to Iran and lived there for a long, long time. Uh, my own, my, my, my, uh, father, My paternal side of the family, my grandfather was from, uh, originally from this town called Orduban, which is no longer in Iran.
It’s actually, um, in, uh, in Azerbaijan and Georgia. It is part of Azerbaijan, but, um, it is in part of Nakhchivan, which is also an interesting story. I want to go there someday, but not yet. Uh, so, uh, my grandfather, for example, was very, um, very active in trying, and there was a very short lived, uh, republic in the 1919, uh, right after World War I, um, in, in Azerbaijan.
And my grandfather was very much into um, you know, this is before my time, but she would tell me the stories and, and, uh, you know, uh, how he helped out, um, you know, he sent money and, and things like that. So, uh, some of those stories, again, I heard from them. Um, I augmented that with, uh, with lots of research, uh, clearly.
So, um, So here we are. So it is true that the Russians did marry Persians.
Naji Gehchan: Fascinating. And, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s such a region full of history, way more complex than what media or news want to tell us about all this part of the world. Um, so well, thank you for shedding a different light on, on this and a different experience. Before I will go to another section, but before that you, there’s something that’s really, uh, I’m intrigued as a philosophy that you have, which is the past can shed light on our technology future.
Yes. And you mentor a lot of startups, really building the future of tech through MIT and other institutions. I would love to hear more about the specific philosophy of yours.
Afarin Bellisario: Yeah, I mean, um, actually I just wrote a little piece for my, my newsletter. It’s a, it’s, We think that, you know, all of these things, I mean, this is the thing, technology is fast, human being and laws and things like that are slow.
Um, if you look at, for example, a hundred years ago when radio was becoming, um, I’m, I’m a student of history. I love history. When I teach entrepreneurship, um, I always have one or two case studies from some old companies there because there’s a lot of lessons. in their successes and also in their failures.
I mean, I talked to them about Polaroid, how great it was, and then it wasn’t, uh, about Lang Laboratories, and these are recent pasts, 50 years ago, 40 years ago, but they were all there. So, so there’s a lot of lessons. Underneath all of these technologies, a human being Who has to use it for good or bad. And every time that you have a radically new technology that is, um, rapidly commercialized.
So once everybody, I mean, yes, a lot of people knew about radio waves in 19, 1800s, but it wasn’t until 1920s that radio became a common place and people went out and bought it. And, you know, there were all kinds of. Stories about what what business model would this thing work at and how, uh, vicious it could be.
I just found an article in a magazine written in 1929, uh, titled radio curse or blessing. So, so, so change radio with the Internet, with AI, with whatever you want. At the end of the day, in the beginning, all new technologies that are radical are both fascinating to people and also scary. But at the end of the day, we just have to come to a, um, come to live with them, to use them, the way we need to use them.
We, we can’t have them rule over us. I mean, and human agency is what makes us happy. I’m happy because this book and read it or not. Um, if somebody constantly tells me, read this book, read, I won’t, uh, because I’m actually a defiant person. That’s another trait I, I share with my, uh, with my hearing. Um, anything on the face value.
So we need to first of all, from one hand, chill out. Don’t be scared from another hand, not to get. Blown up by the by the technology. We gotta take it. We gotta make it human. We gotta pick a pick and choose what we want. Um, it really, really angers me when I go and watch some, um, you know, television. I’m going to go with streaming services.
I’m Amazon Prime, whatever. And instead of telling me what are these genres that I can choose from, you know, they show me all these movies that I may or may not like. Yes, of course, they, they, they help me with, uh, with my choices, but it’s also, it’s sort of a little bit of, you know, it’s, I’m put off by it, it’s like, you know, what are they saying?
Why is this so important? Why is why is this book on the top of everything else? Is that because Amazon is making more money? Is it because is it really good? Um, so we are losing, you know, this, this choices, uh, that are coming together. I’m an engineer, you always optimize based on something. And unfortunately, the, the, um, the most of our social media and most of our, um, you know, most of what we see is, is, is optimized.
On eyeballs and you know, commercial and things like that. So I don’t expect them. I don’t expect Amazon or Google or Microsoft to be ethical beings. Okay, so they’re corporations. They have to make money. But I think as humans, we have to. Um, start taking control of your own, of our own, um, destiny, so to speak.
Um, so it’s, that’s, that’s the philosophy behind looking always at the past because that teaches us a lot.
Naji Gehchan: I want to give you now a word and I would love your first reaction to it. Sure. So the first one is leadership.
Afarin Bellisario: Okay. Leadership is to, you know, to take, um, a team of people, um, to a certain place. And there are many, many different kinds of, um, uh, styles of leadership, if you will.
I mean, uh, a military leader might be, uh, also an operative and convince people and take them somewhere. At some point, you know, you have to say, I’m not gonna, in the middle of a war, everybody’s shooting at us. We are not, we don’t have time to, to, uh, to, you know, discuss everything. But, uh, you know, to, to, to the collaborative as much as possible.
So, a leader is the person who sees the, the, it has a vision, has a, sees the future. A leader, the good leader will share that vision, the places to go with others and take the whole team there. So it’s not that the leader is, you know, uh, across the river, whereas everybody else is still in the, uh, in, in the other side.
So, uh, so it’s a leadership is to me, that’s, that’s what it means.
Naji Gehchan: What about innovation? Well,
Afarin Bellisario: innovation is coming up with something new. But to me, it’s always something new that does something better. Better, faster, cheaper. It’s just that, you know, we learn, we teach that to our teams. Um, why is this thing better?
I mean, it’s fun. For better, you’ve been in MIT. So at MIT, we deal with a lot of technology, and a lot of times, you know, it’s the technology looking for solutions. I always tell people, Fall in love with the problem, not with your solution and because, okay, it’s always good to be to, uh, to be curious and to work on something that’s we don’t know what it’s good for yet.
That’s science. That’s wonderful. And but, but, Innovation has to do with usability. You gotta make something that’s useful to people, um, and they can make, make their lives better. I mean, it could be something to, um, I don’t know, cure a disease, maybe make food better, whatever. So, uh, to me, somebody who comes up with a new fancy dish and it’s a very tasty dish, that’s innovation.
Naji Gehchan: What about startups?
Afarin Bellisario: Startups. Oh, yeah. We are a nation of startups. Um, startups, you know, to me, are people who have a passion, um, and, uh, decide that, uh, um, the, the tried and true ways, the operations or whatever doesn’t work for them for one reason or the other, and they start up. Something new. Um, again, it has hand in hand, hopefully with innovation.
You open a, um, a new bakery in a, um, in the, I mean, flour bakery in, in Boston, you know, flour way close to Sloan, couple of them. So, uh, You know, it’s opening a bakery is not a big deal. It’s not innovation, except that she came up with with a new way of approaching the problems that was innovated. And she started a startup.
to make that innovation possible, commercialize, make it accessible to people. So that’s a, that’s to me, that’s a, that’s a definition of startup. And
Naji Gehchan: the last one is spread love and organizations.
Afarin Bellisario: Spread love, I don’t know, spread passion, spread, cause everything in the world, love, uh, moves the world. And it’s not only love, love between two, two entity, two person, one person and an animal.
You know, love is love. You know, when, when we are thinking about somebody else besides ourselves or some other entities besides ourselves, um, that’s love. You know, and that’s, uh. That’s, uh, and, and that is the, that is what makes the, uh, the, that’s, that’s a huge, uh, motivation. Um, and if we have a, um, organization where people feel empathy towards each other, it’s a good organization.
Naji Gehchan: Any final word of wisdom offering for leaders around the world?
Afarin Bellisario: What is it? Any advice for them?
Naji Gehchan: Any final word of wisdom for leaders around the world?
Afarin Bellisario: Stop thinking about, you know, making, you know, uh, I mean, if you look at people, all these leaders, they’re trying to create chasms between people so that they stay in power.
Um, people have more in common with each other. And then then differences. But if unfortunately, today’s leaders are, um, I mean, and they’re not leaders in my mind. They are. They are ours. The powers of being strong people. But, but those people and my, my advice to them is that, you know, wise up, you know, bring people together because otherwise we’re going to have.
You know, just going back to past and future. Technology is a tool and the more we make it may make it stronger. It also has the effect of potentially more danger. I mean, an atomic bomb is millions of times more, more dangerous than a knife. And, you know, now we have generative AI and all this other technologies.
We have tools of destruction and they got to be careful. They got to be very careful about, um, you know, uh, put you over the fire and, and making the differences worse.
Naji Gehchan: That’s a great way.
Afarin Bellisario: Differences. Yes.
Naji Gehchan: Yes, thank you so much for joining me today. Let’s bring people together. That’s a great way to finish our chat today.
Thanks again and congrats for your, for your book.
Afarin Bellisario: Thank you very much and thank you for having me. And yes, I love nothing better than trying to be a bridge between people. I think that’s, that’s what we need today.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you all for listening to SpreadLove in Organizations podcast. Drop us a review on your preferred podcast platform
Follow us on LinkedIn and connect with us on spreadloveio.com. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback. Most importantly, spread love in your organizations and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify this movement, our world so desperately needs