Hamza Khan

A Don doesn't wear shorts.

Forever 1

“We’re just here to be memories for our kids. Once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future.”

The Ride

My marks had dropped to C’s and D’s. I was damn near days away from dropping out of university. It was my final year at , and I was dragging my feet through a political science degree, clinging to a half-hearted ambition of becoming a lawyer—only to earn my father’s approval. As a high school dropout, he had traded his dream of becoming a doctor for the kind of hustle required to raise entire family trees (plural) out of poverty. His world of unrealized potential now sat heavy on my slumped, first-generation shoulders. But I wasn’t ready to let go of my dream. I wanted to—I needed to—go all-in on my art. Yet I lacked the skill and confidence to explain any of this to my old man. And so I soldiered on. Slowly, the apathy turned into resentment. The resentment into disillusionment. Until one day, I stumbled upon a keynote speaker who said: “You don’t just go to post-secondary to get a job. You go there to become a full person, to maximize your potential. You go there to engage in personal, professional, and academic development. You go there for holistic development.” The very next morning, I switched majors. I started writing for myself again. I told my dad that the lawyer thing was a no-go. My ‘one day…’ turned into ‘day one.’ And the rest is history. That keynote speaker—the one who gave me my call to adventure—is now a dear friend, mentor, and the final guest of Season 1 of . Join us as we reflect on our respective odysseys and prepare for the next chapters of our lives. Episode 8 drops tomorrow morning on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wisdom of the ages from my sages. Some poignant passages from that I’m still thinking about.

Tomorrow’s episode is for all the day one Ideas Into Action fans. 🫡 We’re running back the elder millennial madness with Scarborough’s finest—the one and only ! Try to keep up with our chaotic 120+ WPM convo on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

ChatGPT’s actionable one-sentence summary of every leadership book, course, TED Talk, podcast, keynote, and research paper ever:

“Lead by example, listen deeply, and empower others—because true leadership is lived, not declared.”

Did it get it right?

(Inspired by a post from .)

Lock in on what you want to achieve—and the how will figure itself out.

With twins on the way, I’ve been in a season of slowing down. And honestly, it hasn’t been great for my anxiety. But I keep returning to this exchange with from :

“Everything ends up working out when you focus on where you’re headed.”

And while I appreciated the metaphysical mechanics of that wisdom, I also needed the scientific underpinning. That’s when Bailey and I unpacked the Adjacent Possible Theory, which suggests that each action opens new doors in the direction you’re facing.

First proposed by theoretical biologist Dr. Stuart Kauffman, he used it to explain how life evolves—not through massive leaps, but through a series of small, connected steps. Like when single-celled organisms began clustering to survive. Eventually, those clusters became multi-cellular organisms. Plants. Animals. Us. Not all at once. Door by door. Step by step.

And so it is with growth.

You don’t need to know every step to get unstuck or make progress. Just the next one. Each move opens more doors. One turns into five. Five into twenty. Small steps are exponential in disguise. If you focus on gain, you’ll open multiple doorways to more gain. Psychologist Dr. Stevan E. Hobfoll calls this dynamic a “gain spiral”—a virtuous cycle where each small win opens the door to another. A kind of momentum of abundance. You start seeing doors you couldn’t before.

So that’s what I’m doing right now: staying locked in on where I’m headed—and being present to the reality and its plethora of possibilities.

Even if the next step feels small.

Here’s a thought experiment:

Imagine we’re not alone in the universe, and everything we’ve ever heard about aliens is true. If they showed up and said, “Bring us your leader,” who would we actually agree to send?

Who truly represents the best of us, and would act in the interest of people, planet, and posterity?

Last night, and I watched & ’s , and this exact question drives the plot. In the first 15 minutes, a fearful-avoidant child is mistaken for Earth’s ambassador. Naturally, being the attachment theory and leadership nerds we are, Bailey and I had a full debrief.

I ended up creating a shortlist of who we’d actually nominate to represent Earth. And in my Top 3? Tomorrow’s guest: the one and only .

Avery is a tech educator, AI adoption speaker, founder & CEO of , and co-lead of AI Skills Lab Canada. 

At 58:50 in the episode, I straight-up say: “My name is Hamza Khan, and I endorse Avery Swartz.”

Tune in tomorrow for one of the funniest and most energizing episodes of Sage Advice, featuring the refreshing face of modern leadership: Avery Swartz.

If I learned anything from my conversation with soon-to-be Dr. , it’s this:

The path doesn’t reveal itself until you start walking.

I’m guilty of waiting too long to feel ready. That’s not preparation—that’s fear disguised as logic.

Our conversation reminded me of my favorite quote:

“Move before you think you are ready. It is as if you are making it a little more difficult for yourself, deliberately creating obstacles in your path. But it is a law of power that your energy will always rise to the appropriate level. When you feel you must work harder to get to your goal because you are not quite prepared, you are more alert and inventive. This venture has to succeed so it will.”

Note to self: Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Create it.

The map unfolds when you move.

Scarborough made me aim so high for myself, I sometimes forget I’m already living the dream. And maybe that’s why I’ll never truly feel like I’ve arrived—because I’m not just striving for me, but for every one of my ancestors who had to stop dreaming of a better future just to survive the present.