Hamza Khan
Current Position: Managing Director of Student Life Network and Yconic, Author of The Burnout Gamble, Keynote 7 TEDxSpeaker, Ryerson University Lecturer
“Do you play video games, Rachel?”
Yes I do.
“So this is the way I see it—every time you meet somebody new, you unlock a new character. So, you are in my class, and you are 1 of 140 students. But because we are having this conversation today, I feel like I’ve unlocked a new character: Rachel. And hopefully on your end, you feel like you’ve unlocked Hamza as a new character.”
- Hamza Khan
I want to disclose that I normally sit down with the people I interview in person over a coffee but given the circumstances the world is in right now, Hamza and I chatted via Google Hangout and I owe him a cup of joe the next time I see him! This has been a great adjustment period for many people and I hope we find a solution for this as soon as possible. Stay home, stay safe!
COFFEE #2
I first met Hamza at Ryerson University in my Social Media class this past Winter 2020 semester. In my first class of this semester, I remember instantly thinking to myself, wow this guy rocks. The way Hamza spoke to us about his work and what he hopes for us to learn and accomplish in his class was, and I hope this does not sound cheesy but, inspiring. It made me want to speak about my future job the way he spoke about his. It is in this class that he brought in the guest lecturer, Stephen Sills, who aided me in fostering the idea behind this project. Without Hamza and this course, this project you are reading right now would not exist. I will forever be grateful for all that I have learned and look forward to what new opportunities will follow.
Hamza created his first opportunity for himself at the young age of 14. In the early days of Google Video which preceded YouTube, he and his best friends began producing amateur music videos and skit videos. Though the technology was limited and restrictive, there was a clear skill that was being demonstrated through what they did in terms of editing, scripting, content and just overall producing engaging and fun videos. From this, they began to get asked to make commercials and produce music videos for up and coming artists. Their production company NBP ran for many years. NBP stands for No Budget Productions, a fantastic name for a student run company, might I add.
When asking Hamza about his current position and what types of stories inspire him, I found a gripping correlation. He told me how he is inspired by the traditional hero’s journeys. These are stories of people who live in an ordinary world and are then called to action, either voluntarily or involuntarily, but were motivated to embark on a big adventure. Through that adventure they meet people, they encounter difficulties, they fail, they rise and they fail and rise again. In the end, they change who they are or discover something about themselves or discover something about the world that allows them to solve the problem and then return back to their world and make it a better place. Hamza is the Managing Director of the Student Life Network and Yconic. He described these companies as, “two competing yet complementary brands housed under the same holding company. So they are very complementary but they serve students in different ways. Yconic is serving students as they make the transition from high school to post-secondary, helping them to find the right school and helping them to pay for the school through scholarships, bursaries and grants. Student Life Network, while it also helps with that part of the journey, is largely focused on giveaway contests, opportunities and fostering a sense of online community.” Overall, he wants to harmonize both brands and simplify the academic journey for students across the country. All the projects he is a part of and is working on are, “all working towards making a single outcome true: no student left behind.” Hamza wants to ensure that as many students as possible are able to successfully transition from high school through post-secondary and all the way to their dream jobs and, beyond that, thrive in their future work. The student's journey is undeniably a hero’s journey. There is the ordinary world of students in high school and then the transition from high school to post-secondary and all the way to their dream job. In many ways, if you were to overlay the hero’s journey on top of the student’s journey, you would see a lot of similarities. Hamza wants to do whatever he can to facilitate that for as many students as possible. I guess we can all call him our Gandalf.
He also spoke to me about how the hero's journey, especially in times like the ones we are living in now, can almost be healing and therapeutic. We are able to visualize ourselves in the shoes of the protagonist and then see them resolve a very difficult, more abstract scenario. “There’s nothing quite like watching all three Lord of the Rings films, back-to-back-to-back, to make whatever challenge you’re facing in life feel that much more achievable. If Sam can defeat a giant spider, carry Frodo all the way up Mount Doom, and then chuck the One Ring just to bring peace back to Middle Earth…I mean, that essay should be a piece of Lembas bread by comparison..”
I asked Hamza what project he is most proud of and he said that was a difficult question for him to answer. He spoke about how he may not be an artist in the traditional sense, but he shares an artist’s displeasure with their previous work. He said “I am proud of everything that I have done but…simultaneously not proud of it.” We then spoke about how in order for artists to evolve and grow as professionals, we have to celebrate the victory that comes with completing a project to the best of one’s ability. We, of course, want to think about how we can improve or make things better but we should do so while accepting the accomplishments we have made in our life thus far. After speaking a bit more about this topic, Hamza wanted to change his previous answer. He told me how he is learning to be kinder and more compassionate with himself. He said if he were to shut off the part of his brain that was critical, he would be immensely proud of all he has done. He then said, “I would say a project that I have completed recently that I am proud of was my book.” Hamza published The Burnout Gamble in 2017 which he compared to as his first baby, “and it went out into the world to live on bookshelves and in coffee shops and be a part of people's thoughts and practices.” Looking back Hamza is very proud of his book and rightfully so.
The main piece of advice Hamza gave me was to continue what I am doing with this project. To continue to talk to more people and build facetime and breath in conversations. I need to continue doing things today that my future self will thank me for. “Start preparing. Start accumulating the necessary skills and experiences, even if you don’t know how they are going to play out in the end. Just continue to rack them up because you’re better off having your optionality and adaptability maximized as opposed to minimized. Always.” He spoke about how seeing the inspiration in his student’s eyes and seeing light bulbs light up with epiphanies lets him know that he has shared something, taught something or has done something that will hopefully get one to think differently and move through the world with more confidence and assurance. He left me with this final statement that I feel really addresses his passion for his work and why I thought on day one of his class, wow this guy rocks;
“I don’t have enough years in my life to fully realize the vision I have for the world. My job, perhaps, is to leave this world in a better state than in which I found it. With the time that I have, I want to leave the world with as many resources and blueprints so that the next generation can take my example and start further than where I did. I want to advance the starting point for you. I want to advance the marker for the beginning so that you can take things further than I ever could. This way, we as a collective, can build a more solid foundation for future generations. And so the least I can do with however many years I have on this planet is to give you everything that’s in my head and in my heart.”