Growing Through the Unknown | Sare Goli | TEDxIsfahan University of Technology

What if the most meaningful chapters of your life are the ones you never planned? Dr. Goli shares how sudden loss, career shifts, and unexpected responsibilities reshaped her understanding of success. Her talk invites us to embrace uncertainty as a space for growth, resilience, and reinvention. Dr.Goli traces her life through three transformative chapters, each shaped by her enduring comfort with ambiguity and her belief in steady, persistent effort. A top student with dreams of becoming an astronaut, she chose her university major out of genuine passion, a decision that led to a fulfilling career as a professor and researcher. Her path took an abrupt turn with the sudden loss of her husband to COVID-19, a tragedy that required her to step into the leadership of his engineering services holding company — a world far removed from academia. Today, she finds herself in yet another unexpected role within public sector management at the National Elites Foundation. Through these shifts, she argues that life rarely follows a planned trajectory. Instead of rigid goals, she encourages cultivating broad capabilities, resilience, and the openness to grow in directions we never anticipate. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx