I paid $27,000 for leg-lengthening surgery to change the way I see myself. I used to feel like a child when I wore a suit and I couldn't bear jokes about my height.

• Ibrahim Alğan paid almost $27,000 for surgery to make his legs longer.
• The 30-year-old told Insider he hated being short. "When you're short, you start 1-0 down."
• After his leg-lengthening surgery, Alğan founded a Turkey-based clinic offering the same procedure.

As a school counselor, Ibrahim Alğan's job was to help young people solve their problems. Yet he couldn't solve his own: a serious height complex.

Alğan, who's 30, is from the city of Adana in southern Turkey. He was 5-foot-2 and had strong feelings about his height.