A Note from the Founder

My path to this work has been anything but direct, which is probably why I trust it.

I hold a degree in film and media studies, with a focus on writing and directing. In my mid-twenties, I joined the American Board in Istanbul, where I worked in education and publishing for nearly two decades. When that 185-year institution closed in 2010, I moved to the United States and began again.

After many years of teaching, writing, and making alongside creative people, I noticed a recurring need for contemplative tools that cut through the noise, awaken curiosity, and make the work of living and creating feel genuinely worthwhile. In 2013, I founded my company Peaceful Triumphs LLC to create the tools and experiences I envisioned. In 2026, I built the Life Compendium as a platform where all of them live.

My work has taken many forms: consultant, writer, award-winning translator, publisher, entrepreneur. What connects these roles is a lifelong love for the written word and an interest in how creativity unfolds, especially when it's supported by the right structure and space.

Since the pandemic, my work has become more distilled. I've moved away from instruction and toward practice; away from strategy and toward the conditions that allow meaningful work to emerge without strain. My focus has shifted from how people produce to how they remain. With their attention, their bodies, and the fabric of a creative life.

That orientation now shapes everything I build, including the Compendium. It reflects a change not in what I believe, but in how I live the work. I became less interested in persuading or assessing, and more interested in designing environments where attention can settle, clarity arises, and creativity finds its way back.

I built the Life Compendium deliberately around the work rather than around myself. Think of it as a lab, library, and gathering space for curious, creative people who are less interested in optimizing their lives than in living them more fully.

I live in central New Jersey with my husband and our black cat Mochi, surrounded by woodlands, ponds, and the charm of quaint Victorian towns. My name, Cigdem, means crocus in Turkish. The flower that blooms at the edge of winter, carrying the promise of spring and of what’s next. That spirit of return, renewal, and beginning again is what I hope you’ll find here.