Episode 4 summary:

Herbert Lui and Hamza Khan discuss their respective weeks, with Herbert focusing on his book and social media engagement, and Hamza on his keynote speaking engagements. They explore three different roles in the creative process—starter, developer, and finisher—emphasizing the importance of understanding your strengths and complementing them with others. Herbert identifies as a starter, while Hamza sees himself as a finisher. They share insights on the importance of caring about your work, the challenges of balancing tasks, and the significance of finishing projects to their full potential, using examples like Shigeru Miyamoto and Childish Gambino.

Useful links:

• How to get designers in the right position by Kevin Ervin Kelley
• On owning your lane, pouring all your heart into your art, and validation by Michael Thompson
• Starting, developing, and finishing (via Herbert’s blog)

Unedited transcript:

Editor’s note: This transcript was automatically generated by AI, and we have not edited below this sentence.

Herbert Lui [00:00:10]

What’s new, everyone? You are now listening to new material. My name is Herbert Lui. I am an author of the book Creative Doing. I am also a marketing advisor. I’ve worked with over 40 companies. I recently counted 40 companies. Not that that is a great way to measure. I mean, it’s a good way to measure how many people have trusted me.

Herbert Lui [00:00:31]

So trust me.

Hamza Khan [00:00:34]

Trust me.

Herbert Lui [00:00:34]

I just broke my own rule. I’m like, I never. What is the quickest way to get someone to not trust you is to say, trust me. So don’t trust me. But over 40 companies have trusted me. Folks like Figma, companies like Shopify, or even Intuit. And now I’m a director of marketing at a company called fgx.

Herbert Lui [00:00:53]

You got it. Hardware you got to ship globally. You should come talk to us fgx.com and today I am joined by, as always, the honorable, the incomparable Hamza Khan. Talk to him.

Hamza Khan [00:01:10]

It’s your boy, Hamza Khan, aka HK, aka Young Thug, aka Hamza Hovito, aka Mr. Internationally Known on the microphone. Okay, I just dropped three names that if they were on a domain registry equivalent for hip hop monikers, they would be up for grabs right now because Young Thug is currently facing a RICO trial.

Hamza Khan [00:01:35]

Jay Z is probably going to catch a case. And Diddy, I think he’s locked up. I haven’t been keeping up, but all three of those names are up for grabs and as far as I know, nobody has laid claim to them. So your boy snatched them all up. Young Thug, hamza Hovito, and Mr.

Hamza Khan [00:01:52]

Internationally known on the Microphone. They’re mine now. Oh, hello.

Herbert Lui [00:01:55]

There we go. There we go. Watch the throne, eh? You leave the throne for a second, Hamza’s gonna. Hamza’s going for it.

Hamza Khan [00:02:02]

I got my eye. I got my eye on the big seat.

Herbert Lui [00:02:05]

There we go. I love it. I love it. Well, talk to me, Hamza. How was the week? It’s been. It’s been kind of. It’s been a wild week for you, eh?

Hamza Khan [00:02:14]

Dude, it’s been a wild week. And I just so look forward to these conversations every Saturday because I just get to be goofy. I get to be dumb, I get to be silly, I get to be flippant and just myself, you know? So, yes, it was a really, really busy week for me.

Hamza Khan [00:02:30]

This week was the equivalent of a playoff series for a keynote speaker, which was every single day, another city, another keynote, another client, another topic. So the amount of context switching, the amount of mental, physical, emotional, and even spiritual discipline needed to accomplish all five of these events required was challenging to say the least, and it really took a lot out of me.

Hamza Khan [00:02:57]

But it was also very restorative, very regenerative. I finished the week feeling really good about the work, feeling good about my craft, feeling good about where my career is going, where the messages are going, where the zeitgeist is going. So what’s really interesting is I reflected on this just yesterday on the flight over, which I have another story for you about listening to new material on planes, which I would highly recommend.

Hamza Khan [00:03:20]

This show passes the walking through New York test. It also passes the flying back and forth from Toronto to New York test, especially on Porter, because there’s no wifi on Porter. So what else are you going to do? You’re going to listen to new material, of course. But I was journaling yesterday on the flight and I wrote down, I don’t think I could have done this week that I just had three years ago.

Hamza Khan [00:03:45]

I went pro as a keynote speaker four years ago. The first year I don’t really count because it was all virtual and I was in the comfort of my own home. And I would travel the world from room to room. I would do a keynote in Sydney in the morning, I would travel to Mumbai in the evening, and then I would do a couple of virtuals for Toronto, North America.

Hamza Khan [00:04:06]

It was relatively easy, minus the existential dread. But then I got thrust into the world of full time keynote speaking, which required me to live out of a suitcase. And just the physical toll alone was a lot. Just traveling to and from, sitting in airports, sitting on planes. It sounds like it’s innocuous, but I’m telling you, as somebody who’s doing it quite a bit, it does get taxing.

Hamza Khan [00:04:27]

It does wear on your joints, it does wear on your mental health as well. So I’ve gradually been building myself up for the week that I had and I feel like I came out on top. I feel like I won that championship or that champ. I think I’m still in the championships right now.

Hamza Khan [00:04:40]

I got a couple more series left, but I won that series and I’m really proud of it. So thank you for asking. Dude, what about you?

Herbert Lui [00:04:47]

Well, I’ve been good. I mean, I want to say really quickly, that sounds amazing. It’s. It’s challenging. I imagine it’s like, hey, it’s an artist going on tour, right? And that’s like the most taxing part of the whole process, I’m sure. It’s also like, I’ve heard this saying, I forget who or this Idea, the tour itself.

Herbert Lui [00:05:13]

The best part of the tour is that one or two hours you’re on stage. But everything else, like the hours, days, weeks of prepping that your team does and that you have to do, and then on top of that, the commuting, you’re on the road, you’re not eating home cooked food. You have to really fit in the workout wherever you can.

Herbert Lui [00:05:34]

All of those things, it’s not, it’s. You know, I heard my friend James, who I work with at fgx say this. It’s logistics is not one big problem you need to solve. It’s like a thousand little problems that you have to get right. And that sounds exactly the same when you’re talking about going on a tour, especially for Keynote speaking, dude, 100%.

Hamza Khan [00:05:58]

And if I could give you a small glimpse into what this looks like. I absolutely draw inspiration from the world of music, from the world of sports specifically. I watch documentaries on and I watch behind the scenes footage of rappers, rock stars, comedians, basketball players. I’m watching the starting five documentary right now on Netflix and I just can’t believe it.

Hamza Khan [00:06:18]

Like Bailey played it this morning and I was like, whoa, is this a TV show? Is this a movie? And what is this? And she’s like, it’s a documentary. It’s like a multiple episode episodic documentary. And I was like, wow. Unfettered access to LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Diamante Sabonis and Karl Anthony Towns.

Hamza Khan [00:06:39]

Like, how did they do this? Last year they filmed all of this. And it’s just for me, it is the equivalent of productivity, peak performance porn. I get to just get like, oh my God, the material that you like, brains like you. And I can extract from this just like the one liners that like even Jimmy Butler, the opening episode, him talking about doing the whole emo cut and showing up on game day as a way to express himself.

Hamza Khan [00:07:01]

I’m like, oh yeah, I gotta table this, I gotta talk to Herbert about it. But yes, I’ll give you a small glimpse into what the discipline looks like on my end. So I had to travel from, I believe it was Winnipeg to Edmonton. So I did a keynote in the morning. I traveled to Winnipeg that afternoon.

Hamza Khan [00:07:18]

Other way around, I was in Winnipeg. I traveled to Edmonton that afternoon. I got into my hotel, I immediately started ironing my clothes, prepping for the next day, and then I went to sleep to be able to get six hours of sleep. And then I woke up the next morning and I’m up at 4, I believe.

Hamza Khan [00:07:34]

Nothing is open except for 24 hours at McDonald’s. So I go. I work out first thing. It’s like a. It’s empty in the gym. It’s eerie. It’s almost like I’m turning every corner. I’m afraid that the twins from the Shining are going to show up. So it’s mental, it’s physical, it’s emotional. And then I got to replenish myself because I’ve worked out, I’ve broken down my muscles.

Hamza Khan [00:07:54]

I need to get the protein in. How do I get protein in at 4 in the morning in Edmonton? Well, McDonald’s is open, and I order two Egg McMuffins without the bread. And I’m just eating these sad egg patties, two of them. And I’m like, this is it. This is what it takes to perform at the level that we hold ourselves to.

Hamza Khan [00:08:14]

You just have to submit yourself to the process. And the process demands that if I am to have protein to allow for my brain and my body to be at its best, then if it comes in the form of two patties, if it comes in the form of a protein bar, if it comes in the form of a protein shake, I can’t get picky about it because this is so much bigger than my preference.

Hamza Khan [00:08:32]

Look at that. Boom.

Herbert Lui [00:08:35]

Protein.

Hamza Khan [00:08:35]

This is the life we chose.

Herbert Lui [00:08:39]

It’s wild. I hear you. It’s very. First of all, there’s a. I mean, no, I’m gonna refrain from the line. I was just gonna say, maybe the next time you can stay at the Aria, not the Doubletree. You tell the clients, you’re like, I’m.

Hamza Khan [00:08:58]

Staying eight minutes in the Aria. There we go. Eight minutes in.

Herbert Lui [00:09:02]

Anyway, Yes, I had a protein bar just before this. Yeah, dude, I want to do it. I was. Yeah, it’s Saturday morning. But I was also saying, hey, like, I’m gonna go down. I’m gonna get a protein bar because we record these. It took me, like, half an hour to get this whole thing set up.

Herbert Lui [00:09:18]

The situation. I’ll take a picture at some point and paint the picture for everyone. But, yeah, I. You know, Bernice, my wife Bernice, was like, hey, maybe you should get two protein bars. I was like, that sounds about right.

Hamza Khan [00:09:30]

That’s probably a good idea. And I love that you’re serious about this. I love that Bernice is serious about this. And I think it’s certainly the two of you being producers, creators, entrepreneurs at the highest level, living in New York, holding yourselves to this standard that necessitates constant striving. Last night, I Had dinner with a good friend of mine, Zach, CEO.

Hamza Khan [00:09:53]

One of Canada’s most admired CEOs, I should add, a very successful company.

Herbert Lui [00:09:59]

What’s the company?

Hamza Khan [00:10:00]

Lupio. Are you familiar?

Herbert Lui [00:10:01]

Oh, yeah. Cool.

Hamza Khan [00:10:02]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lupio, man. Shout out to Zach. Shout out to Lupio. And we got to talking. It just naturally comes up when we’re together. We just talk about peak performance, leadership, you know, achievement, so on and so forth. And like, without saying it, we all arrived at the table at the conclusion that one of the values that we hold dear is can.

Hamza Khan [00:10:26]

Can be mapped out on this phrase. Give a. And there’s a company that I did some. Some speaking for earlier this year called Jobber, based out of Vancouver, I believe. And one of their values is explicitly give a. Like. Like, it’s like, accountability, collaboration, and then give a. Like, it’s just so jarring to see it.

Hamza Khan [00:10:46]

But when I saw it, I’m like, yeah, man, I appreciate this. Especially when I read their manifesto, I’m like, I resonate so much with organizations, with people, with entities that just give a shit. And like you, dude, Herbert, you write every single day like you give a shit about writing. You give a shit about your audience.

Hamza Khan [00:11:03]

You eating these two protein bars, it’s not pleasurable. Like, you’re not going to get any mouth pleasure from eating a protein bar, but your body’s going to thank you for it. Your mind is going to thank you for it. You’re going to have energy throughout the day because you give a shit. And we did things this morning to summon the energy, the time, and.

Hamza Khan [00:11:20]

Sorry, to carve out the time, muster the energy and sustain the attention to record this podcast. Because materialists, we give a shit. We give a shit about you, we give a shit about each other. I think more people should just tune into this idea of giving a shit and feel free to call it that.

Hamza Khan [00:11:35]

You can call it care, you can call it quality assurance, you can call it thoughtfulness, whatever you want. But I think give a shit really gets to the heart of it. It’s like, it’s raw, it’s aggressive. It’s meant to be jarring because if you’re not giving a shit, you should know it for sure.

Herbert Lui [00:11:55]

And I think it’s also that simple and that difficult as well. It’s really easy to give a shit for the things that you care about or that you like. Sometimes you gotta give a shit about the stuff that you really don’t like, or you gotta give a shit in situations where there’s not enough time and energy.

Herbert Lui [00:12:14]

To give a shit. And we’re going to dive into that in this topic we got for you today a little bit later. It’s perfect. It’s perfect. I want to quickly go over my week, too. I think for me, I took us really down the scenic route. But I’m glad you shared all that.

Herbert Lui [00:12:30]

That was really insightful and really helpful. It really just shows what it takes to excel as a keynote speaker and to excel as a thinker, really. I think for me, you know, been you. If you’ve listened to episode one and two and three, you’re gonna be hearing about this book I’m working on and previous episode.

Herbert Lui [00:12:51]

I was like, hey, I’m just gonna have to get it done in two weeks. Somehow. I was working on it this week. I’m like, there’s no way I’m getting it done in two weeks. But I was also like, you know what? The projects that I was putting off and that I was hoping to pull in eventually, once I’m done this book, I’m just gonna have to figure out a way to start them in small ways.

Herbert Lui [00:13:12]

And so this week, for example, I got back on social media. I’m back on X, Twitter, whatever we call this thing now. I don’t know if we have an agreement to that yet, but I’m gonna get back on LinkedIn, back on Threads. I just turned on my threads account, actually, and yeah, it was nice getting back on on Twitter, X Zitter, whatever we call it.

Herbert Lui [00:13:35]

I’m super confused whenever I say this. It’s easier to type. Well, let’s call it Twitter.

Hamza Khan [00:13:39]

Okay, sure, sure.

Herbert Lui [00:13:41]

So I remembered seeing. And the way this works is I had a post, one of my first posts in a long time that actually hit because now I’m actually back on there and actively messaging and replying and things. And yeah, I got like 10,000 impressions. It was not necessarily viral, but it was a nice dose of early momentum again to get back on social.

Herbert Lui [00:14:03]

And it was a thread about Bill Watterson, who is the author of this series of maybe the best. I would say top five. But my favorite. One of my favorite equivalents to a graphic novel or illustrated stories. Right. Comics. Calvin and Hobbes.

Hamza Khan [00:14:25]

Gang. Gang. Probably my top two. Oh, Calvin and Hobbes.

Herbert Lui [00:14:29]

There we go. There we go. What about all the anime, though? There’s no anime that will top that. That’s what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying.

Hamza Khan [00:14:37]

I got some spicy opinions there, but keep cooking with Calvin and Hobbes.

Herbert Lui [00:14:40]

All right. Right. So Bill Watterson wrote and drew a Calvin and Hobbs strip every day for, oh, over a decade, I think. And he was approached actually with the option to license this work to make TV shows out of it, put it on clothing, all of those things. And he actually decided not to do it.

Herbert Lui [00:15:04]

He’s like, first of all, I don’t really have the time and energy to do that if I want to keep doing this comic strip really well. But secondly, I just. It’s my choice. I’m the artist and I get to decide if I don’t want to do it. I don’t need even a good reason to do it.

Herbert Lui [00:15:19]

I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to say yes, so I’m going to say no.

Hamza Khan [00:15:23]

And Calvin taking the ball and going home.

Herbert Lui [00:15:26]

That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. And that was, I think he, you know, he has this speech at Kenyon College, 1990, so the year before I was born. And it was this commencement speech where he was basically saying, hey, creating an enviable life and being happy are two very different things. And it’s a theme that I came across.

Herbert Lui [00:15:49]

This speech, maybe the first time I wrote about it was like, 10 years ago when I was working at Lifehacker. And this speech always finds its way somehow back into my brain, whether it’s through online or it just pops up. I think it’s really important to remember. It’s like, hey, just because you’re doing things that other people might envy or might covet, it doesn’t mean you’re happy, necessarily.

Herbert Lui [00:16:13]

And vice versa, too. Just because you’re doing things that make you happy, they might not be the cool things that other people envy and covet. And so I’m thinking about, first of all, I’m just really happy that message got to reach a lot of people. And my thread was even inspired by someone else’s thread who really went viral.

Herbert Lui [00:16:33]

But for me, I think about that every day as I’m writing my blog, and I’m like, oh, I’m like, maybe 20 years too late to the blogging game, right? Like Seth Godin, I think, started his blog, 06. I don’t know, Tyler Cowan. And all these people, they still blog every day, but they start their blog in the 2000s.

Herbert Lui [00:16:51]

I started my blog. I started blogging every day in 2022. And Hamza, I was just doing the math. I don’t often do this, but I was just like, hey, wait, I think a big number is coming up soon. And I realized on November 10th I’m gonna have. That’s gonna be my thousandth blog post every day, which is pretty mind blowing.

Hamza Khan [00:17:10]

Pretty wild mind blowing. Most people will never write a hundred blog posts in their life. You’ve written a thousand in the last two years.

Herbert Lui [00:17:17]

I mean, yeah, it’s, you know, it’s just, it feels natural. And I think I actually recently a friend of mine, Michael Carnegie, who is the most notable for starting Skillshare, he took on the 100 day blog post challenge as well. And it was quite interesting. It’s really cool. You can see his blog mikecarnj.com last name is K A R N J dot com.

Herbert Lui [00:17:43]

Nice. And yeah, he wrote some really fire blog posts, so definitely worth checking out. And so between doing all that, it definitely, like gives me the. It makes me happy. First of all, it gives me a good amount of raw material as well to post onto the other things and all of that and to also get the energy to work on my book.

Herbert Lui [00:18:06]

And so it all feeds each other really well. But yes, I was gonna say to tie it all back to the book. Just keeping calm through all of that and being okay with being a couple weeks flexible with the deadline and so on and so forth, I think is critical because as you and I know, we’re Virgos.

Herbert Lui [00:18:23]

So it’s like, hey, that deadline’s coming up. It’s like, oh my gosh, I think I got three new white hairs. You. It’s hectic. And so being flexible with the deadline and being okay with, hey, this thing just needs to take a little bit more time. It’s going to be great, though. Is a critical decision to make.

Hamza Khan [00:18:39]

Yeah, man. Dude. And this is such a fundamental lesson for creativity, productivity, just getting shit done, which is energy and time goes. Energy and time flows, where attention goes, I’m guessing butchering that. But basically just picture a pyramid. At the base of the Pyramid is the 168 hours afforded to every single human being.

Hamza Khan [00:18:58]

168 hours a week is the canvas of time that we’re offered. And we can use that canvas of time to generate, I would say, a mostly finite amount of energy that can fit within that 168 hour container. And that all leads up to the point at the top, which is attention. What focus is really the top.

Hamza Khan [00:19:17]

But it all leads up to that performance point. And you have made this a priority. You have made getting this book done a priority. You have made blogging a priority. You’ve kept the main thing, the main thing. And as such, now, Herbert, you are reverse engineering your day to support that output. I imagine you’re using the best hours of your day to do your writing.

Hamza Khan [00:19:37]

You’re not writing at the end of the night. You’re not writing, you know, hungover. You’re writing in a very clear, cogent, fresh, you know, state. When you’re full of zest and zeal.

Herbert Lui [00:19:52]

I want to.

Hamza Khan [00:19:52]

Or on our own. Really.

Herbert Lui [00:19:54]

Yeah. For the. It’s actually not always as ideal as that. I will say that. I will say a lot of times the writing gets the leftovers of the day. There’s a good amount of time when it’s like 4:00pm, 5:00pm and I’m like, haven’t worked on the book yet. I’m gonna have a snack, I’m gonna go work on the book.

Herbert Lui [00:20:11]

And even if it’s half an hour, even if it’s one hour, it, it does feel sub optimized, I’ll say is one word to put it. But it feels a little painful as well because it feels like this. The most important thing. And you and I can agree that’s the most important thing.

Hamza Khan [00:20:27]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:20:28]

Is getting kind of the leftovers of the day. But I will also add that I. That used to be an excuse for me. It used to be an excuse. Oh, I’ll just work on it tomorrow. And I’ve decided, you know what? That’s no longer. I will give it whatever time I got. It’ll just get the leftover sometimes and I gotta be okay with that.

Herbert Lui [00:20:46]

And it’s too bad. But it’s also nothing to be ashamed of if you’re not giving it the best hours of the day. I don’t want to let optimization and idealism get in the way of actually doing the work and like shipping it, you know. So that’s also been a practice in doing that.

Herbert Lui [00:21:04]

Yeah.

Hamza Khan [00:21:05]

Interesting.

Herbert Lui [00:21:06]

It is, it’s interesting. I think like that’s just what happens when a, like real life happens a little bit. Right. I’m working and not reliant on the books to give me my full time income. So when I, you know, that often takes the job and the advising and the marketing often takes a good amount of the day.

Herbert Lui [00:21:30]

It takes a good amount of energy and a good amount of focus as well to wrap your head around problems and things like that. So on days, yes. Like there’s some days, hey, like I can, I can figure out the time and iron it out just before work or things like that. But there are often a lot of days where I’m also like, oh, like it’s like 9pm And I gotta, like, crank out a blog post.

Herbert Lui [00:21:52]

And it does feel very painful. It feels quite painful. Just like the brain is so tired. But I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna take it easy. I’m gonna. You gotta get used to it. And it’s kind of similar to. I mean, when I think about that, I think about an athlete who’s playing with a very minor injury, right?

Herbert Lui [00:22:09]

They’re like, look like I’m not in ideal state either, but I had to figure out how to work around this almost.

Hamza Khan [00:22:14]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:22:15]

Not likening writing a blog to, like, playing in the NBA, but maybe in, like a minor league or like a rec league or something. You know, it’s.

Hamza Khan [00:22:22]

It’s the Jordan theraflu game, Right?

Herbert Lui [00:22:26]

Exactly. In an ideal world.

Hamza Khan [00:22:29]

In an ideal world, he’s still Michael Jordan. And you’ve reminded me of something here, which is, look, I’m such a subscriber to the beginner’s mindset that I just, earlier today watched a reel that my boy made for my speaking, and I had a moment of disassociation where I’m like, oh, shit, I’m really him.

Hamza Khan [00:22:46]

I’m really the guy in that reel. Because I’m such a beginner in my mind that I don’t believe most of the time when my bio is read out. And so even if you come out your blog post at the end of the day with a depleted battery at the. In the equivalent state of Michael Jordan with a flu, the crazy thing is that you’re still Herbert.

Hamza Khan [00:23:06]

Like. Like you’re still gonna spit. You’re still gonna cook. There’s still fire that’s gonna emanate from those fingers and from the pen. Like, the pen game is nice no matter what. And so I wonder if it’s like, maybe the tables turn a little bit once you achieve mastery of your craft, and then there’s incremental improvements to be gained from working in an ideal state, because maybe you’re just always at master level, you know?

Hamza Khan [00:23:37]

And, you know, you go to your book at the end of the day, and the book is like, hey, man, why are you giving me the leftovers? And then you say to the book, you should be honored by my lateness that I would even show up to this.

Herbert Lui [00:23:52]

Okay, I love that.

Hamza Khan [00:23:54]

I got a story for you. So at the end of the week, I started off really fresh, so I bang out. Keynote number one goes really well. Keynote number two goes even better. Keynote number three, I’m a little shaky. Keynote number four, you know, I’m definitely not at my best. But the audience has no idea otherwise.

Hamza Khan [00:24:13]

Keynote number five. Ooh, buddy. I get up on stage and I’m like, oh, this is not good. I feel like I’m starting to black out. I’m. I’m mumbling my way through things. I’m stumbling my way through things. So I’m delivering this keynote, things are going well, and I’m like, oh, I missed that punchline.

Hamza Khan [00:24:29]

Oh, shit. Like, I should have done this. Why is my body language seem so close? Like, I. The. The inner. The. The simultaneous inner monologue, the concurrent monologue was overwhelming. The imposter, my God, was just on stage, kicking, screaming, biting me. It was a disaster mentally. And so I walk off stage being like, I hope that was okay, dude.

Hamza Khan [00:24:51]

The first two things happened to me. Career highs. I got offered a gig. As soon as I walked off stage, somebody came up to me right away and was like, oh, we’re gonna book you for our next event. I was like, wow, Shit.

Herbert Lui [00:25:02]

Amazing.

Hamza Khan [00:25:03]

And then one guy comes up to me. He’s like, oh, Hamza, that was the best keynote I’ve ever seen in 25 years.

Herbert Lui [00:25:09]

And I was like, 25 years, bro.

Hamza Khan [00:25:13]

And I was like, oh, yeah, you know what? It’s all in my head. I’m still him. I can do an exceptional keynote that can blow people’s minds even when I’m feeling depleted and now not completely depleted, not even close to burned out, not even close to overwhelmed, to the point where I can’t perform, but definitely not as sharp.

Hamza Khan [00:25:32]

I think that the fifth keynote that I did in the week got my leftovers. It was the equivalent of you showing up to your blog post at 4pm but the conversation needs to change because you and I are not talking like the Herbert and Hamza of 10 years ago. We’re talking about Herbert and Hamza in 2024, where we have enough confidence to say we’re going to thug it out in New York.

Hamza Khan [00:25:51]

That’s how much confidence we have. Like, it’s. It’s actually like irrational confidence. It’s. We are at the peak of Mount Stupid on the Dunning Kruger curve. I know rent’s coming up in four days, and I’m going to get a nice slap from reality being like, are you sure you’re really about this life?

Hamza Khan [00:26:08]

And I’ll be like, you know what? Let’s do it. Let’s go.

Herbert Lui [00:26:13]

You got to be rich just to be poor here, man. It’s. It’s really something.

Hamza Khan [00:26:17]

True words have never been spoken.

Herbert Lui [00:26:19]

And, like, the. Yeah, it’s Always nice to have an end of month reality check. But to go back to what you were saying, though, just now and earlier, the reason you could see all this stuff is because you give a shit, right? You.

Hamza Khan [00:26:33]

Yes.

Herbert Lui [00:26:33]

And you don’t want to turn that part of your brain off.

Hamza Khan [00:26:36]

It never.

Herbert Lui [00:26:36]

It’s like a different relationship. Maybe not, you know, even you knowing, hey, I’m not. We’re not going to be enemies anymore, Smeagol, Right? Like, we’re going to be. We’re going to be, you know, at least give me a break for a sec and you can. I’ll listen to you after. And the thing it brings us, I mean, let’s.

Herbert Lui [00:26:53]

Let’s dive into the theme for today, I think, which is. Which is giving a shit is a huge part of this process. Yeah, yeah, right. Like you have an idea, you need to give a shit and like develop it and then you need to finish it up. And so really the thing or the idea, It’s a mental framework that I want to talk about today and it’s something that a friend of mine, Michael Thompson, actually brought up with me.

Herbert Lui [00:27:21]

So Michael is an author of this book, Shy by Design. Really great author. He’s a teacher as well. He’s based out of Barcelona, Spain, so he’s teaching at a university there. And around a year ago he asked me, hey, are you a starter, a developer or a finisher? And that was an idea that he got from one of his collaborators, Kevin Kelly.

Herbert Lui [00:27:44]

And here’s the concept, right? Starters are great at filling out an initially blank page with ideas so they can scribble, they can draft all these things and they’re just so good at it. It just oozes out of them. It’s almost like you have a napkin in front of you and you just start something.

Hamza Khan [00:28:04]

Yes.

Herbert Lui [00:28:05]

So that’s a starter. A developer shines when they’re helping starters pressure test and advance those ideas. So to me, actually, the give a shit portion really relates to the developers aspect a lot because they see these things lying around and the developer’s like, wait, we need to make this good or we need to make this better.

Herbert Lui [00:28:25]

Right? And then a finisher thrives when they’re packaging up the ideas. So it’s been developed, it’s almost being done developed. And now it’s like, hey, we just need to, we need to really like take this to the finish line.

Hamza Khan [00:28:38]

Right, right, right.

Herbert Lui [00:28:39]

And put it out in a really, you know, it can’t just be loose like this. Right. It needs to be tightened up. It needs to Be polished. We need to even do some. I use the word packaging just now, but it’s maybe it’s similar from a product being engineering complete to being product complete, meaning engineers, you know, software devs.

Herbert Lui [00:29:01]

There’s a tendency in technology for engineers to just ship their work when they’re done, you know, they’re done debugging. They’ve, you know, it’s all looking good. They’ve quality assurance, tested it, and then they’re like, okay, cool, let’s just tweet it and it’s going to be out there. And that’s probably every marketer’s nightmare.

Herbert Lui [00:29:20]

It’s like a wish. Hold on. We need to really get all the messaging correct. We need to really put a launch campaign together. We need to talk to the product marketers and make sure, hey, like, are we talking, Are we integrating all the partners and having those things in the conversation? And so that’s really a finishing kind of question.

Herbert Lui [00:29:38]

There’s also times when you need to bring it to a key stakeholder or maybe a bunch of test users and go like, hey, like, is this working? And they might suggest that one change that’s going to blow you right through the deadline and you got to decide, hey, is that going to be okay?

Herbert Lui [00:29:56]

Right? And so I’ll pause there because those are the initial three. We can, we can start getting into each of, like, further descriptions of each one. But I’m curious based upon hearing that, Hamza, does that sound familiar to you? And which one might you identify with a little more?

Hamza Khan [00:30:13]

Yeah, dude, what a great framework. As you were saying that, my first thought was, which one am I? And then my second thought was, how cool. If we’re stretching the analogy that we created in episode one of the Business Athlete, if the sport is business, these are essentially the positions. This is like point guard, this is forward, this is linebacker.

Hamza Khan [00:30:36]

So in any company, you have these personalities. You have the starters, you have the developers, sometimes literally, and you have the finishers. And I’m starting to visualize, like, if you were playing a video game, you know, business 2K, let’s just say that was a game that we launched. Launch new material partners with EA to launch business 2K.

Hamza Khan [00:30:52]

And you got to sort of like, choose your characters. It’s like, what are their attributes? Who are they? And if you select the starter attribute, that’s like the inventor, that’s the visionary, that’s the Steve Jobs, that’s the hippie, for lack of a better word, in the organization. And I think that’s me. And I’ve heard this multiple times.

Hamza Khan [00:31:14]

In fact, Bailey says this all the time. And initially, I start when she first started saying it, it was a me issue. I started taking it as an insult because I pride myself on completed works. Like, I publish two books. Every keynote is a finished work. Like, I’m always shipping, I’m always delivering.

Hamza Khan [00:31:31]

But she’s like, hamza, you’re great at starting things, and then leave the execution to somebody else. And I didn’t understand what she meant by that. And now I finally get it after hearing this analogy, which is, yes, I can develop, yes, I can finish. But my zone of genius, if you will, is starting.

Hamza Khan [00:31:49]

When you said I. When you describe the attribute of this person as looking at a blank page and ideas ooze out from them, that’s me. I am the prime mover in all of the endeavors that I have right now. I’m usually the first person that initiates the email, brings the people together. I am the Kickstarter, the person who takes advantage of the first mover principle, the first mover advantage.

Hamza Khan [00:32:14]

So, yeah, dude, this is a really helpful framework and it’s actually helping me with the company that I’m building right now, visualize how this, how this group of people came together. So, yes, I concocted the idea at the top of the year. Then Bailey and other stakeholders started getting involved, and now we’re bringing in developers.

Hamza Khan [00:32:31]

But it’s interesting that the CTO role that we’re bringing in is acting as the finisher. So you can straddle all three of these realms as well. Just because you have a zone of genius, your zone of genius is in one area, doesn’t mean that you can’t do the others. But it’s worthwhile surrounding yourself with people that can complete a project, especially if you have the privilege of working in a team.

Hamza Khan [00:32:53]

So, yes, I, as the CEO of the new company, will have all three of these responsibilities or these areas of responsibility, and I will constantly be the one who’s starting. But I have a team of developers that will shepherd the project to the finish line. And I love that. At the finish line right now is our CTO and technical co founder, who is working backwards, who sees my vision and says, I’m going to bring it all the way here.

Hamza Khan [00:33:18]

So, very helpful framework. Shout out to your boy who inspired this and shout out to you for publishing about this on Herbert lay dot net.

Herbert Lui [00:33:27]

Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s so great to hear. And I can totally relate. I also identify most as a starter, really When?

Hamza Khan [00:33:37]

Yes, when I’m surprised, I thought developer.

Herbert Lui [00:33:40]

Yeah. Okay, that’s interesting. So when Michael first told me about this, I was like, I think I’m all three. And it has become much clearer to me that I get the most energy from starting and filling out blank pages with ideas. So the blog posts are a really good example, right? I love starting a blog post.

Herbert Lui [00:33:59]

There’s a lot of people I’ve met who if their energy isn’t developing, it’s really difficult for them to get started. I was talking to another friend who is this really great editor I’ve worked with, and he was saying, I was like, hey, why don’t. There’s the age of AI now, so you kind of need to build your own brand and all these things, right?

Herbert Lui [00:34:21]

Just put yourself out there a little more. And he’s like, I really don’t have a problem with making something good and taking a draft to completion and things like that. But it’s really hard for me to start stuff. And I made some suggestions to him. I was like, hey, maybe you can transcribe or dictate some of your thoughts into your phone and things like that.

Herbert Lui [00:34:47]

But at the end of the day, I can very much relate with what he’s saying because he gets the most energy from seeing something and then making it better. Michael is the same way. Michael works with a lot of clients to co write or edit. And really I think his phrase is he makes the word sing, right?

Herbert Lui [00:35:06]

And I’m like, oh, that’s like very much a developer kind of aspect. But for me, starting and finishing, the shortest distance from starting and finishing is like my favorite thing. And I actually have to restrain myself quite often and be like, look, even with this new book I’m working on, it’s like, hey, you don’t want to ship too early just because it’s uncomfortable and you don’t know how to make it good yet.

Herbert Lui [00:35:30]

You’re really wrestling with it and you just press publish for no reason other than that it’s uncomfortable. You really want to. How do I say this? You want to step back and cool off for a second and be like, hey, this isn’t where it needs to be yet. And that’s where the developer aspect comes in.

Herbert Lui [00:35:50]

It’s like, I give too much of a shit to just let this thing fly.

Hamza Khan [00:35:54]

Yes, yes.

Herbert Lui [00:35:56]

But I will say my default state if I wasn’t restrained would be, let’s just get it out there and then I can work on the next thing. And that’s why I also really like Finishing stuff because I can start on the next thing. I don’t like finishing it so that I can just finish it and be done with it.

Herbert Lui [00:36:10]

I’m like, I just want to start the next thing. And I totally agree, by the way, on what you said about the teams when you’re working on a team. So actually, maybe I’ll flip it first. When you’re working solo or on a small team, you need to do all three. And in a leadership role, as you said, Hamza, you really need to know which hat to put on when you’re going to need to do all three as well.

Herbert Lui [00:36:33]

Because the CEO is often the. In an ideal world, they’re the last line of defense in a way. Right. Like the buck stops with them. And anything that the company releases, it’s a reflection on them too.

Hamza Khan [00:36:44]

Totally.

Herbert Lui [00:36:45]

And so you need to be a finisher, but you also need to really keep a pulse on the higher level context of things and know what to start and what to stop.

Hamza Khan [00:36:55]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:36:56]

And make suggestions to the team. So at a leadership level, I think you need all three.

Hamza Khan [00:37:02]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:37:03]

But even when you’re just starting out independently, let’s say you’re on a very small team or you’re one person, you also need all three of these aspects and you need to, you know, as you mentioned, like when you’re building this out, if you’re on a team of 10 people, you don’t want everyone to be one type of energy.

Herbert Lui [00:37:23]

Right. You need to hire people who can complement each other. And so for me, if you’re hiring me as a starter, you want to get a developer who can appreciate the starter, but also like is very comfortable developing. And that’s the thing that they get a lot of energy from. And I guess looking back, that’s why me and Michael had worked so well together.

Hamza Khan [00:37:41]

I love the way that you describe these things as aspects because when I initially received them from you and I read about it on your blog, I saw them as archetypes, I saw them as roles. And the challenge with archetypes and roles is that people think that there’s only one and they fit into one.

Hamza Khan [00:37:59]

But as we said in episode two, Everything I’m not right makes me everything I am.

Herbert Lui [00:38:05]

100%.

Hamza Khan [00:38:06]

You are all three of these things. I mean, my brand ideas into action encompasses this entire spectrum in many ways. You could map this onto any sort of physics based description of movement. You know, there’s a starting point, there’s an ending point, and then there’s the actual action required to get from A to B.

Hamza Khan [00:38:24]

I think it’s as natural as the universe if we’re applying a permaculture lens to this. I mean, I think the most widely accepted theory, I don’t know if anybody doubts it, is there was a spark, a big bang, and then from that, matter started moving outward. So there was like, a point in space and time, and then temporally, things have been moving away from it.

Hamza Khan [00:38:43]

So the universe is also engaging and starting developing, and we don’t know what the final state is, but theories are that there’s going to be a heat death, there’s going to be a big freeze. At some point, the movement of the universe is going to stop. And then who are we as mortal beings, as these insignificant specks floating through the cold, vast emptiness of space, to think that we can do anything other than just obey the laws of physics itself?

Hamza Khan [00:39:06]

So you are all three of these things simultaneously. Now, yes, you may have a strength in one, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t develop and you can’t finish. And I now want to change my answer because, yes, Bailey thinks I’m a great starter, but I actually pride myself on finishing. I’m really good at evaluating, or not even just evaluating, like, conjuring in my mind the end state of anything.

Hamza Khan [00:39:30]

Like, I know what the end state of this podcast looks like. The end state of this podcast is me and you in a studio in New York or Calabasas. That should give you a clue with. Or Shibuya. Or I was going to say Yla or Milan. Or I’m going to just name a couple of places where we likely will have to do the episode.

Hamza Khan [00:39:54]

But you and I are going to have to get flown out or fly out to sit down with a guest that is really important to both of us and do the interview that is either going to begin the next act of our career or end our careers altogether. One of two things is going to happen.

Hamza Khan [00:40:10]

I hope it’s the former, it’s likely going to be the latter. But that, to me, is the end state of the podcast. Like, if that once we do that episode, it’s like, oh, shoot. Like we, in my mind, we finished. And at that point, you know, if you follow the Luinian change cycle, it goes unfreeze, change, refreeze, unfreeze, change, refreeze, and just keeps on going in that cycle here.

Hamza Khan [00:40:32]

And so, like, start, develop, finish, beginning, middle, end, unfreeze, change, refreeze. These three acts are, again, can be mapped onto the most basic of physics principles. So I love This a lot. And, you know, I think that there’s so much here at the level of productivity and peak performance that you can infer from this process or from these aspects.

Hamza Khan [00:40:55]

And I’m going to start using that word that you just used a couple of moments ago, because if you evaluate the end state, if you create an end state, then you can, as a CEO, as an individual contributor, start to determine the best way to initiate, to get the momentum necessary to pass on to the development developers or the development phase of the project to get to the end state.

Hamza Khan [00:41:16]

At the same time, you could probably also do it the other way around. You could just start and have a vague idea of where to finish. It’s entirely possible. You can drop into a project as a developer and then do the quick calculus of where did this start and where might this go?

Hamza Khan [00:41:28]

So I love this as a continuum. I think it’s. To borrow from the da Vinci idea. There’s nothing left to take away here. It’s as elegant and refined as a process gets. Well, I mean, what other stage would you add to this? What other aspect would you add to this? There’s really nothing else.

Hamza Khan [00:41:44]

At least I don’t think so for sure.

Herbert Lui [00:41:46]

I think it’s complete as a framework on its own. Big shouts to Kevin Kelly for. For coming up with it. We’ll link to Kevin’s original article here as well. And I think, I think it’s worth noting. You know, we talked about. I think. I think starting is simple enough, right. Spinning up a new idea and you almost can’t help it.

Herbert Lui [00:42:06]

It oozes out of you. I think developing is also. We’ve talked about it quite often. Right. Developing an idea very much to me is like an editor’s job almost. Right. Like an editor working with a writer. The writer is the person who pitches the idea conventionally, who drafts it up, who makes, you know, like sentences draft, and the editor, really, when you’re playing an editor role, you’re.

Herbert Lui [00:42:34]

You’re trying to make it better and you’re trying to make this article what it’s the best version of what it can be. That’s what a developer is supposed to do. I think that finishing is really the most interesting or like probably the most tricky part out of all of this as well.

Hamza Khan [00:42:52]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:42:52]

And it’s also very critical. I would say. I would say all three are critical. I was going to say it’s the most critical. I would say that it’s very wasteful to start and develop and not finish something.

Hamza Khan [00:43:05]

Absolutely.

Herbert Lui [00:43:06]

Whereas if. But the flip side is also true, which is if you only know how to finish stuff and you have nothing to finish, then you can’t really do much.

Hamza Khan [00:43:13]

Right?

Herbert Lui [00:43:13]

So I think that finishing. I wanted to talk really quickly about a story that actually I thought of and wrote at my blog, but it’s about Nintendo. So there’s this video game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto.

Hamza Khan [00:43:28]

Let’s go.

Herbert Lui [00:43:30]

Yes. Working in Nintendo. And they were the boss, right? So they’re like, hey, look, I’ve, you know, I’m supervising everything. And so there’s this game that’s coming out, the Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess. And it was, you know, the team was on track to make a deadline. Everyone’s rushing forward. Like, you know, translations were already starting and Miyamoto was like, hey, you know, they gave it to Miyamoto to test.

Herbert Lui [00:43:56]

They made it as good as they possibly could and they gave it to him to test. And he’s like, wait, hold on a sec. This first village where, you know, in a day in the game is maybe a few minutes, but it’s too short right now. Let’s make it three days. They got to spend in the village so the user can get more familiar with the controls, but also maybe like get more comfortable with the world and we don’t just throw them in.

Herbert Lui [00:44:20]

And the team was like, oh my gosh. And they’re working overtime already. They’re like, okay, we really got to scramble to meet this deadline. So we have to pause the translations and we have to get everything done. So that’s the first story. And there’s another even more interesting story here. You know, years before this, right?

Herbert Lui [00:44:39]

Maybe even decades before there was a game. Have you heard of this game? Tinkle Popo?

Hamza Khan [00:44:45]

No, dude, Tinkle Popo, that is. It’s a weird name.

Herbert Lui [00:44:50]

It’s a weird name.

Hamza Khan [00:44:52]

One of the most pause worthy names I’ve ever heard. Tinkle Pop. Hey, yo.

Herbert Lui [00:45:03]

So true.

Hamza Khan [00:45:04]

That’s my stripper name. Tinkle Popo.

Herbert Lui [00:45:08]

So Tinkle Popo was going through Miyamoto’s review and this was decades ago, they had pre sold 26,000 units of this game.

Hamza Khan [00:45:16]

Oh wow.

Herbert Lui [00:45:17]

And they’re like, wait, hold on, we gotta pause this thing. And so for the next year, and a little bit more than that, the team polished the game a lot more and they gave it a new name. Most importantly, Kirby’s Dreamland. And what? Yes. So Kirby’s Dreamland, the original Kirby, originally. Tinkle Popo.

Herbert Lui [00:45:38]

Yeah, Kirby was going to be called Tinkle Popo.

Hamza Khan [00:45:41]

Yeah. I’m never Going to play Smash Brothers the same again. What?

Herbert Lui [00:45:45]

Right. And so this whole year, right, that Miyamoto made the decision, hey, this is not good. We need to develop it a little more. But also we need to decide, hey, how are we going to finish this?

Hamza Khan [00:45:58]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:45:59]

And it was already technically in the finishing stage. They were doing preorders. He’s like, wait, we need to pause this. This is not working. And that turned what would have been probably a really obscure game, probably stuck in. You know, it was developed by Nintendo. Probably wouldn’t have made it too far out of Japan.

Hamza Khan [00:46:18]

Right?

Herbert Lui [00:46:18]

It’s like, it’s Kirby now. Like, everybody knows Kirby. It’s like the favorite, right? Like, there’s Kirby merch everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. And so it’s. I think it was so fascinating just to hear this story about, hey, like, you really do need to understand when to. The job of a finisher is even to be like, hey, this is not finished.

Herbert Lui [00:46:40]

Like, not good enough. It’s kind of like a developer aspect as well, except the developers are also, like, doing a lot of the active work on it. The finisher has to be like, hey, this is the standard we’re meeting here. It’s not there and it’s really sucky for everyone to hear this, but we’re gonna have to, like, push this out a little bit more if we want it to be as if we want it to create the biggest opportunity possible.

Herbert Lui [00:47:06]

So it was just.

Hamza Khan [00:47:07]

Wow.

Herbert Lui [00:47:07]

Yeah, I’ll pause there.

Hamza Khan [00:47:09]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:47:09]

Just one of my favorite stories, though.

Hamza Khan [00:47:11]

I love that. Let me ask you a totally unrelated question.

Herbert Lui [00:47:14]

Yes.

Hamza Khan [00:47:16]

First of all, thank you for that. I don’t want to diminish the story that you shared, which is tremendously valuable with my stupid question.

Herbert Lui [00:47:23]

Oh, here we go. Here we go.

Hamza Khan [00:47:25]

Who is the rapper equivalent of Tinkle Popo? The attributes are underrated, counted out, umiquitous. That is such ubiquitous, annoying, but effective.

Herbert Lui [00:47:40]

Oh, man, I got one.

Hamza Khan [00:47:44]

But I want to see what you say go first.

Herbert Lui [00:47:47]

Like, I mean, I think about this, I think about the. Okay, I got one. But it’s not a rapper, it’s an album.

Hamza Khan [00:47:54]

And even better, It’s.

Herbert Lui [00:47:56]

Yes, it’s 31520 by Childish Gambino, also now currently known as Atavista. And so the reason I listed that one is because I don’t think it was quite done yet. I think it was done as an album in terms of music. And yeah, you could fix some of the mixing and mastering, maybe add a couple more songs.

Herbert Lui [00:48:17]

When you compare at Avista, which Childish Gambino released earlier this year. And 3:15, 20, it’s not, like, totally different. It’s a little different.

Hamza Khan [00:48:27]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:48:28]

But 3:15, 20 came out, and I think he put it out at an interesting time, which was just the beginning of the pandemic. And he was like, hey, look, people are going to be inside. Let’s give this. This is a moment, you know, let’s like, publish it. But I think it was also just.

Herbert Lui [00:48:43]

It was a little rushed. You could tell. And it was showing the. It was showing the incomplete nature of the creative process. Right. It was a snapshot of that album, but it didn’t feel completely finished yet. It felt like a punk album that came out. It was like a punk move to just put it out there and be like, all right, cool.

Herbert Lui [00:49:03]

Like, you guys do what you want with it. I’m the artist. So I have another post about this punk packaging versus polished packaging. And Atavista is super polished. Super well done. If it came out at the time, I think it would have spread a lot further. But because he split that single release into two releases, I think the effort of it was a little spread out a little further.

Herbert Lui [00:49:29]

I’m not saying that it’s annoying or anything like that, but I think it’s album that would have made a much greater impact if it was released and focused as one. One release.

Hamza Khan [00:49:40]

You know, I’ve never listened to that album, but knowing what I know about Childish Gambino, that does seem very apropos. Yeah, Childish Gambino, AKA Tinkle Popo.

Herbert Lui [00:49:53]

No, no. Atavista. Atavista. Well, maybe Childish Gambino too, because that was like a Wu Tang name generator. So you wonder, hey, would there have been a. If he had a better name, would his art go even further? Now I want to pause there and say, hey, hold on a sec. Challenge. Gambino is, like, super successful, so let’s.

Hamza Khan [00:50:13]

Get him on the pod. I have to be careful because I’ve been taking shots at Jay for no reason over the last two episodes, and I’m worried that we’re compromising our ability to get Jay on the pod at some point. So I just want to let any representatives from Roc Nation who are materialists to know that when I record these pods with Herbert, I’m dropping my guard as Hamza Khan, author, educator, entrepreneur, whatever, and just being silly, but also, like, super thoughtful about our audience and sensitive to topics to the extent that we actually, from the last episode, had to delete a careless joke that I threw.

Herbert Lui [00:50:50]

In there for sure.

Hamza Khan [00:50:50]

So I just want to apologize to Evan and Anybody else who had to listen to that initial version of the episode, there was something that I. I snuck in there to try and be funny, but I was like. As soon as I recorded, I’m like, oh, man, Herbert, I’m. My bad, man. Like, I don’t want my joke to be out there, dude.

Hamza Khan [00:51:05]

So Tinkle Popo. Yes.

Herbert Lui [00:51:07]

You care, though. You care.

Hamza Khan [00:51:08]

I give a shit.

Herbert Lui [00:51:09]

You give a shit.

Hamza Khan [00:51:09]

I give a shit. I give a shit.

Herbert Lui [00:51:10]

And the only reason you mentioned Jay so much is because we followed his career so closely and we’re such huge fans and same for Drake. Like, you might have. You know, we might have both been a little constructively critical of Drake at times, but also, it’s just because we care so much.

Hamza Khan [00:51:25]

Like, I care to the extent where, like, I think, like, Drake, Drake is one of the only people in the world who can get me to stop what I’m doing right now. If he reached out to me, he’s like, hey, man, like, come on board. OVO as, like, a creative director. OVO Hamza.

Hamza Khan [00:51:40]

I’m in, man. I think, like, since OVO Brian dropped out, there’s a spot open, right? I’ll come through. You know, I was just about to make another terrible joke, and I’m like, I have to remember now that I am a public figure, so let me take it easy, man. Shout out to our.

Herbert Lui [00:51:54]

Who is your Tinkle Popo, though?

Hamza Khan [00:51:58]

Last episode, episode two, Francis Foreign Car Coppola. If you counted it, it was, like 17 mentioned at least 12 times, so. Holy. Okay, let me get it together. So the aspects that I gave of TP were underrated, discounted, but ubiquitous and competent. Like, when you encounter this person and you’re like, yo, they exist.

Hamza Khan [00:52:39]

They’re actually nice. My equivalent of Dingle Bobo was Fat Joe.

Herbert Lui [00:52:52]

Dude, I’m tearing right now.

Hamza Khan [00:52:55]

She looks like Tangled Popo a little bit.

Herbert Lui [00:53:00]

Wait, that was actually a really good answer, though. Hold on.

Hamza Khan [00:53:03]

I hope Fancy holds his breath. He looks like Tangled Popo.

Herbert Lui [00:53:08]

You’re wilding. You’re wilding.

Hamza Khan [00:53:11]

I’m never going to be able to run for office. This new material is going to be the death of me, man. Okay, so. Okay, going bad joke.

Herbert Lui [00:53:17]

Hold on. Oh, my God.

Hamza Khan [00:53:19]

We have to put a bow on this episode. We have to. We have to come back to. We have to finish the episode. We’ve been developing it. We’ve been derailed. Let’s debug this quickly and finish the episode.

Herbert Lui [00:53:31]

I totally agree. Okay. Fat Joe is a really good response. Yeah. Do you want to dive into that That’s a good. I would totally agree with that.

Hamza Khan [00:53:39]

So. So Fat Joe is never in any of the conversations. He’s never in the top five conversation, the top ten conversation. I doubt he’s in the top 50 or top 100 conversation. There’s. I can’t think of a single list that Fat Joe is on, but he’s competent. Like, when you listen to his raps, I’m like, oh, good.

Hamza Khan [00:53:56]

He’s actually very skilled. You know, he came up under, arguably one of the top 10. Big pun. And he was a protege, he was a peer. And so you see a lot of that influence in Fat Joe’s work. And Fat Joe’s consistent. You know, he’s an entertaining personality. The way he’s transitioned into business and into becoming a media mogul has been quite, quite, quite rewarding to watch as somebody who is obsessed with ideas of not immortality necessarily, but, like, what happens after this?

Hamza Khan [00:54:30]

Because, I don’t know, like, me and you are flying by the seat of our pants. There’s no blueprint. There’s no one who we can look at and be like, yeah, this is the version of Herbert that has gone the distance. Like, we’re carving this path as we go. So to see someone like Fat Joe constantly reinvent himself is really cool.

Hamza Khan [00:54:43]

And he still goes by Fat Joe, even though he’s like a quarter of the size now.

Herbert Lui [00:54:48]

Yeah, he’s not Fat Joe anymore. Joe as a name, first of all, already taken.

Hamza Khan [00:54:53]

As an artist name, already taken. So, yeah, going back to my database, my repository of hip hop monikers, Fat Joe is up for grabs. If there’s anybody out there who is larger and named Joe, know that Fat Joe as a moniker is available for purchase 99.95 GoDaddy.com so. And he’s also very competent.

Hamza Khan [00:55:20]

And when you listen to me, like, oh, yeah, he’s really. He’s really good, Ben. He’s ubiquitous. Because I think that you can be anywhere in the world and there’s like two or three songs that people just know. They might not know. Fat Joe made the song or was featured on the song. But, like, he’s got some universal bangers.

Herbert Lui [00:55:35]

Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. I hate to not lean back just now while you were saying all this. You know, I’m like, okay, okay, that’s right. You know, yeah, it’s so true. And he’s definitely just such an iconic cultural figure. Right? Just such a legend. You know, I just read the. I forget if it was an interview.

Herbert Lui [00:55:59]

I’ve been seeing him around a Little more lately. And yeah, he’s like a great father. You know, just all of these incredible. He plays a lot of important roles really well.

Hamza Khan [00:56:10]

Yeah.

Herbert Lui [00:56:10]

And so big shouts to Fat Joe.

Hamza Khan [00:56:12]

A lot of respect, man.

Herbert Lui [00:56:14]

So much respect. I mean, in some ways, he’s actually also Kirby. You know, it’s a. It’s a funny. It’s a funny, you know, the comparison between what could have been versus what is right now. And you.

Hamza Khan [00:56:26]

Right.

Herbert Lui [00:56:26]

You know, you start thinking about those things. But, you know, we’re. We’re on the note of. Of concluding this pod. I think that was. I think that was a super interesting, interesting comparison and thought exercise about what packaging could have done.

Hamza Khan [00:56:43]

I think so. I think so, man. And so let me ask you then, Herbert, in sharing the SharePoint responsibilities here, what advice would you give to the materialists when it comes to navigating the process of starting, developing, and finishing?

Herbert Lui [00:56:59]

For sure. I think for me, two pieces. One is if you’re naturally good at something, it’s going to be completely counterintuitive. You need to both double down on what you’re good at and lean into it a little more. Right. You need to know yourself and be like, okay, cool. This is the spot on the team that I’m the best at.

Herbert Lui [00:57:22]

So, for example, me knowing that I’m a starter, if you told me to write one blog post a week, I could make it better than all seven of my daily blog posts, for sure. But I’d probably stop after four weeks because I’m like, I don’t like doing this.

Hamza Khan [00:57:36]

Right.

Herbert Lui [00:57:38]

And so I write, I’ve been able to get close to a thousand. Will be a thousand. Nice, man. And I don’t know how many more, but I’ve been able to do that because it’s just, like, feels natural to me and it feels very energizing to me to do it every day. I can’t wait to do it the next day is like, you know, I look back, it’s one of the best parts of my day.

Herbert Lui [00:57:57]

And so you want to lean into that strength while also. Excuse me, simultaneously, you also want to strengthen and get more familiar with all of the complementary aspects. Right. So development, for example, I don’t know if I would have gotten that good at it if I didn’t have to do it for work.

Herbert Lui [00:58:19]

But through working with. When I worked at Shopify plus and my client there, Tommy, really, like, helped me set the foundation for what good editing looks like. And then I worked with Rachel on creative doing, and that really set the foundation. And I Worked with the team at Figma to really set like an upgraded foundation for all of this stuff on what good editing looks like and what good work needs to look like, and sometimes also the challenging things, questions, explorations you need to take to get there.

Herbert Lui [00:58:53]

And also, you know, through all three of these people and many more. I’m sorry if I forgot or it’s not in my mind right now. It’s very uncomfortable work to get good at one of these aspects you’re not good at, but it’s really, really valuable and it will make you even better at the role that you currently play.

Herbert Lui [00:59:13]

And it’ll teach you how to collaborate with. If you’re a starter, you’ll work with developers and finishers in a much better, more harmonious way because you’ll also understand where they’re coming from. And so I would say that’s, you know, double down on your strength and also get really familiar and ideally kind of good with the other two aspects as well.

Herbert Lui [00:59:33]

That’s my advice. Hamza, what about you? What’s your. What suggestions or recommendations would you have for someone listening to this?

Hamza Khan [00:59:40]

Dude, I can’t. I can’t top that. That was. That was perfect. I’ll just add, just reflecting on my own epiphanies of thinking where I’m at in this continuum, giving yourself some grace and recognizing that if you are adept at one of these aspects, it’s like, take that feeling as a lesson. It’s not a life sentence by any means, but just because you’re really great at starting now doesn’t mean that you are never going to develop competency as a developer or as a finisher.

Hamza Khan [01:00:10]

You can just oscillate throughout your entire career and it’s okay. But what’s really important, most important, I would say, is just the awareness that this is a cycle. It’s a cycle, as I mentioned using some wild analogies earlier, that is as natural as the formation of the universe itself. And honestly, for anybody right now who has an idea that they’re looking to bring forth to materialize, if you’re looking to have an idea come to life, just simplify the process of doing so and recognize that it’s somewhere on this continuum right now, if the idea is in your soul, it needs to start.

Hamza Khan [01:00:46]

If the idea has been written and you haven’t revisited, revisited the idea in a long time, if it’s in a notebook somewhere, it needs to be developed, or, you know, if you have an email that needs to be sent, it’s at the finisher stage. So Just start to think about your creative work and just your work in general, maybe even your life in these terms.

Hamza Khan [01:01:05]

And I promise you, Herbert and I both promise you that you will be able to move it further along this continuum and hopefully have it come to life sooner.

Herbert Lui [01:01:16]

Hamza, that was great. That was great advice. I think it’s so critical to remember, hey, like, first of all, not to let this label box you in, but rather to let this label liberate you and to use even your strength to get really good at the other things. You know, if you like starting stuff, get good at finishing so that you can start the next thing.

Herbert Lui [01:01:37]

You know, there’s. There’s so many ways to think about that. And I totally agree. Is like, you know, being. Being forgiving of yourself, accepting your own strengths and weaknesses by extension, and working on both of those things is a great note to close on.

Hamza Khan [01:01:52]

Boom.

Herbert Lui [01:01:53]

Thank you so much for listening to this. Yes, excited to do the next one, but this was a great convo. Please let us know if you have any questions, thoughts, and you can always check us out@thenewmaterialshow.com if you’re listening to this on your favorite podcast app. Please rate us, subscribe, and let us know what you think.

Herbert Lui [01:02:12]

All right, we’ll catch you next time.

Hamza Khan [01:02:13]

See ya.

Episode 3 summary:

In this episode of New Material, Herbert Lui and Hamza Khan continue their exploration of creative processes. Hamza shares his consistent 5am (!) wake up routine and tales from his recent travels, including a chaotic week of context-switching between family events and work. Herbert talks about his visits to The Met, his decision to stick to a pressing book deadline, and his revisiting of Virgil Abloh’s philosophy on creative work. They explore the playful aspect of creative work “The Idiot” (aka “The Fool”) in the creative process, emphasizing the importance of playfulness and spontaneity. Hamza reflects on his own creative odyssey, including his desire to return to music video production and the impact of playfulness on his public speaking. Herbert shares prompts from his book Creative Doing and his blog on remembering how to play and nurture your inner child.

Useful links:

• Chaotic Good by Rachel Jepsen
• Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge: Roles and the Writing Process by Professor Betty Flowers
• Make time to Play, a prompt from Herbert’s book Creative Doing
• Say Yes, a prompt from Creative Doing
• The four inner beings of a writer (via Herbert’s blog)
• 2.5 hours with Rising Green (via Herbert’s blog)
• Kids in the Front Row by Niklas Göke

Unedited transcript:

Editor’s note: This transcript was automatically generated by AI, and we have not edited below this sentence.

Herbert Lui  0:08  

What’s New everyone? My name is Herbert Lui. I am an author of a book called Creative, Doing, working on the next one as well. I write every day at my blog. HerbertLui.net my last name is l, u, i You can’t spell Herbert like half the baristas in New York City. Then.

I’m also a marketing advisor. I work with a lot of companies on their marketing right now, one called FGX, First Global Express. You got it hardware, we’ll help you ship them across the world. That’s me, and I’m here, joined today by

Hamza Khan  0:51  

by Hamza Khan, aka HK, aka Lion King, aka kill a Khan. Con Corleone, Bubbe, Larry incarnate, Hurricane Hamza, the prodigal son, the prodigal son to Electric Boogaloo, aka the real American Prometheus, aka now I become life, creator of worlds. I don’t know where that came from. I just got so hype. I’m gonna do an AKA for you, bro.

Herbert Lui  1:15  

Let’s go. Nice.

Hamza Khan  1:16  

Let’s go. This is Herbert, like, aka not Herbert Louie, aka that Rudy Tootie, fruity Louie. What I usually do this, that jump, stop, breathe, hooty hoo. I don’t know where that came from. I could do the rest of the song, if you’d like, but I’ve been on a hardcore camera on kick this morning, so I I’m feeling buoyant, I’m feeling verbose. I’m feeling like I just need to rhyme for the rest of the rest of the recording. I

Herbert Lui  1:44  

love it. Man. That’s the killer cam effect. Okay, hold on. You said this morning, turn

Hamza Khan  1:49  

the purple on one second. Here we go. Let’s go. Pink ink. Purple. There we go. Shout out to purple horsepower. Pink horsepower, whatever is what product he’s pushing, pushing these days. I think he’s called Pink horsepower,

Herbert Lui  2:05  

right? I have no idea. Man, I can’t keep up. I barely the show. The show is entertaining, but I’m I’m struggling to keep up with all the content everywhere. Okay? I was gonna ask, it’s Saturday morning. You mentioned the morning just now, most people, probably not. Most many people, are waking up at this hour. It’s probably like 11am I get an email from you, and I have gotten emails from you in the past that’s like seven, 7:40am What time do you wake up on Saturday morning? Hamza,

Hamza Khan  2:36  

dude, this is a good question. I don’t know why. I feel a little bit ashamed to admit that I wake up at 5am every day, no matter what, even on the weekends. Wow. Yeah, man, the cons, the key to being consistent with these 5am mornings is to wake up at 5am no matter what, no matter how late the night ended before, and just trust that your body will establish the baseline that will dictate when you need to fall asleep. So I got home last night around 12. We were celebrating my sister in law’s birthday. What a night in New York, I gotta say like this, the nights in New York where you just sort of find your night or find your day, are ridiculous, minus the baristas who can’t spell your name. I had somebody pronounce my name or spell my name the other day. L A, I How does Hamza become l a i grow

Herbert Lui  3:22  

Wait, did you that was your drink, though, right? You didn’t. You didn’t take Li’s drink somewhere.

Hamza Khan  3:28  

Okay, so I gotta add more context here, right? So I have a Starbucks name, I have a coffee barista name, and that barista name is Ali, which is my middle name. And I sometimes even have to do like, the whole gesture, right? Depending on how chaotic the Starbucks is, how chaotic the coffee shop is, but I am convinced that the average employee is having a bad day at work. I’m convinced that they are just so checked out, disengaged, overwhelmed, that they’re going through with this director from corporate to customize the experience for for the patron. But it’s completely backfiring. I’m just like, don’t do it, man. Just like, take the drink and let’s just make it transactional. It doesn’t have to be a transformational experience, bro. And so I give them Ali and I tried Hamza, and they were like, What has hazam? Hazma? I’m like, No, man, it’s not summoning a superhero. It’s not a respiratory illness, bro. Let’s just go with Ali. And they were going back and forth to me, this whole ordeal took like, 45 to 67 five to 60 seconds, and oh, my goodness, I got back lie. And I’m like, this is where we’re at, bro.

Herbert Lui  4:27  

I mean, technically, a li Lai, there’s, I don’t know there’s more, yeah, can make the cognitive jump there, but Hamza, Hamza a lie. I’m like, wow,

Hamza Khan  4:40  

yeah, that was, that was a leap. And so, like, there was a gradient of experience that went into producing live. But I’m like, You got you, you rearranged all three letters in completely different sequences. Like, this is, anyways, I too, got a bone to pick with New York baristas. Herbert. Let me know. Let me know when we’re riding on him, because I’m in my killer cam bag today. I. Yeah,

Herbert Lui  5:01  

for sure. Man, for show, for show. Dude, the 5am wake ups. Man, super impressive. Super impressive. I’m I’m not there. I don’t think I’ll ever be there. I’m gonna be honest with you, because you you slept at like midnight, maybe you got back. Yeah, you said, right. I was

Hamza Khan  5:17  

in bed at one, but my mind was racing, like I was lying in bed thinking about this morning’s recording. Because we have because we have such a fun pun, very much intended, a fun topic today, a playful topic today. And I was just like, I need to bring in some stories, especially because I’ve been getting very critical about our last two episodes. I listened to them and I ran them through a new test, by the way. So we’ve done the walking through New York test. Herbert, I did the rock me to sleep on a flight from LA to New York test recently, okay, and it works so well, like, I put it on and that, like the nice new material intro beat, that just slides, that feels like, you know, an elder millennial throwback to 2010 Drake beat. I’m just like, oh man, it lulled me right into the conversation and then hearing us laugh and joke and tell stories and riff on all things, creativity, productivity, peak performance, it just felt really great. And then I woke up about 45 minutes into it, and I was able to just pick back up because there was a consistency in theme and voice and style that I really enjoyed. So I’ve been thinking really deeply about what I want to do differently as we build out new material. And one of the things that I loved about the first two episodes is when we were just having fun, when it was just us laughing, telling stories, being silly, and I’m like, for sure, just gotta do more of that shit, man, you might see me next week wearing a full pink, purple fur outfit. That might just happen at some point in the evolution of this show. That’s That’s right now, there’s like, probably three guests that if we were to get these three guests, they would be like, the infinity stones for us. And I know that we can, like, wrap up the show once we get those three. I can name two of them. I cannot, I can’t they

Herbert Lui  7:10  

must not be named. They must not be named.

Hamza Khan  7:16  

This, all of this spawn from you asking 5am I was I was up. My mind was racing. I’m like, I have so much I want to say on this topic, especially after I read your multiple posts on the different array of characters that compose the creative being, the creative way of thinking. And I actually had to go and look at some therapy notes, because this actually was a big theme of a therapy journey that I was on maybe two years ago where I was experiencing severe disassociation, and so I had my therapist helped me come up with that sort of inside out panel of characters that compose and animate Hamza. And anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself over here. There’s so much I want to say clearly, but let me turn this back over to you, bro, what’s been happening with you? Let’s just do a quick sort of life, not even quick. Why slap some constraints on it, dude, luxury, tell the story. What’s been happening with Herbert,

Herbert Lui  8:09  

yes, yeah, what’s been happening, man, I found out that last week was a long weekend. I found out on Friday, it’s like the best feeling, man, I was like booking a meeting with with a CEO I’m working with, and he was like, oh, yeah, this sounds good, but Monday’s a holiday. I was like, Monday’s a holiday, holiday. And amazing. So I went to the Met. I’ve been meaning to go for a few weeks now, and finally, you know, there was the opening for it, and it was just so nice being there. You know, it was super busy, as it always is. It was practically a weekend, but it was just so refreshing to visit, to enjoy the crowd, the crowded spaces, to enjoy the classical art, to enjoy all of it, man and I, you know, there’s been this one painting that I’ve been trying to see for a long time, and it was not there. I check it every time, because I visited once, and it was there, and then, like, you know, long story short, it’s not anymore. And I’m like, oh, man, but I ended up finding it on Google. And so that’s what visiting the Met, like unblocks for me, a lot of times these things that kind of like I forgot about myself, or things that I forgot that I really enjoyed. And I got to read a book as well. While I was there, I went to the roof, brought a really small book with me called Managing managing yourself, or Managing Oneself, or something like that. I really should remember, it’s a nice rooftop

Hamza Khan  9:41  

too, with the sort of the the play on the Egyptian columns there, with graffiti on them, and, yeah, do they have that installation still going on at the

Herbert Lui  9:50  

Met they did a couple of times ago? I think they changed it. Okay? I’m gonna be honest with you. I was the view is what takes, is what takes the attention, right? It’s like, oh my gosh. A View set, you know, it’s smack dab in Central Park, and then, like, you just see the rest of Manhattan, you’re like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And so that was my met trip. What else happened? I ventured out to Queens for, like, a friends a friend’s art show. It’s been and I’m trying. I actually have been listening to a bunch of Virgil Abloh lectures from like, the mid 2010s you know, it is, I guess it is, I think, I think, like I subconsciously, or maybe consciously now, like, I turn to them in times of difficulty and times of just like, Man, I don’t know. I don’t know if this is working. I don’t know if this is going to work. I’m I was making a decision earlier this week, which was to I was like, I have a deadline for my new book. Am I going to stick with it or not? And I was like, If I don’t, if I give myself some extra time, I can do all this stuff. And I was like, You know what? I think I’m just going to stick with it, because there’s a lot of other projects down the line that I want to work on and that I just can’t pull through until I push this one out. And so I’m like, Well, I think, I think this is it. I think I got to decide to ship it and then and like, get it out there, and it’s going to be what it’s going to be. And Virgil is like the perfect voice to listen to, right? Like, you know, he has this great saying, perfectionism does not advance creativity some I’m paraphrasing it a little bit, but there is no failure, right? Like, as long as you put the work together, it’s in varying stages of completion. It’s out there, and that’s that. And I really so that was the RISD lecture from 2017 that I listened to. I really enjoyed it, and it’s all sorts of chaos. I just blogged about it as well. He’s like, he didn’t, he showed up to RISD. He’s like, I’m not. I don’t have anything planned. I think I’m gonna try to make something while I’m here and then talk about it. And he has like, a full day worth of, like, managing off white, right? So it’s like he’s trying to do all this stuff in the middle of all that. And I was like, Man, this guy is so next level, so great to listen to. Last thing I’ll add is I picked up, so I’m traveling to Asia in December, and I picked up my visa to get into China, and it was like, Okay, it’s actually not that far from hosting. It’s like, near Times Square, like the consulate. So, you know that bike ride? I took an E bike up the West

Hamza Khan  12:35  

e bikes. Man, it’s

Herbert Lui  12:37  

amazing. Man, it dude, the experience is just, I don’t do city bikes very often, but that path to me feels very like, you know, bike friendly, of course, kind of like the waterfront in Toronto, right? And it’s like, oh, I just really, actually, exactly, and I really enjoyed it. And so, yeah, man loving. Had a good week, had a solid week, and I came in really prepared to talk about my week. Clearly, I was like, Whoa, yeah,

Hamza Khan  13:06  

man, it’s such a solid week, and it’s such it’s such an on brand Herbert week. It’s the perfect confluence of all things, art, creativity, anxiety, like that’s certainly a big theme of new material and our lives, but a healthy sprinkling of hip hop in the culture throughout everything, especially layering in those vintage Virg lectures. Man, it’s, I’m so happy that you got to experience that, dude, thank

Herbert Lui  13:31  

you. Man, it makes me very happy. That’s

Hamza Khan  13:33  

quite the image. Man, it’s like, you know, it’s like a short film. Man,

Herbert Lui  13:36  

it was all over, dude, it was all over the place. I loved it. How about you? Man, how was, how was the week you went from New York to LA?

Hamza Khan  13:45  

Yeah, that’s it. Was wild man. So like, I had the opposite week to you. You had such a a thematic week. There was a consistency throughout it. There was art. There was going to Queens checking out your friend’s Gallery, which I mean, I really want to do, since I’ve been here, I’m so nostalgic for the show called How to make it in America.

Herbert Lui  14:03  

And, oh yeah,

Hamza Khan  14:04  

do you know the show, dude, of

Herbert Lui  14:06  

course, of course. Did

Hamza Khan  14:07  

you watch it? It’s, yeah,

Herbert Lui  14:08  

I think I’ve watched. I mean, there was only one season, right? Like, you grow Oh damn. I think I only watched season one. That’s a very new old head show, by the way. That’s

Hamza Khan  14:18  

a new old head show. And I have a deep fantasy that, like in creating new material, at some point, there’s gonna be a merch line that rolls out, and that’ll be my playful attempt at crisp, you know, so just putting that out there for the materialists. So you had a very consistent, regenerative week. I had the opposite. Mine was discordant and it was draining at times. And so I would say the theme of the week was context switching. And for those of you unfamiliar with context switching, it sounds literally what it’s like. You’re just changing context constantly. And you know, for an introvert like myself that just needs consistency of relationship and just needs some pattern. In my day, in my week. I didn’t get any of that. So I went from New York to Toronto. I stayed with my parents over there. And that’s a whole other thing we can unpack. You know? I can take my parents in doses. I love my mom and my dad. Mom, Dad, if you’re listening to this, I love you so much. But I think we need space. You know? I think that we can be with each other, by the

Herbert Lui  15:19  

way, like most people, you want to,

Hamza Khan  15:21  

eight hours, 24 hours, we’re good. At 48 hours, it’s like, hey, we don’t, we don’t have to talk all the time. And at 72 hours, it’s like, the door is closed. Don’t come in. Like, I just need to reconstitute. They

Herbert Lui  15:34  

clearly love having you around, though, which is why I think the key to take away is 100%

Hamza Khan  15:39  

man. And as I’m saying that like I think about, I think about, I I realize I’m doing it right now. I have a tendency when I’m with you, and when I’m in these playful Saturday morning moods, to just go off on tangents. Let me just bring it

Herbert Lui  15:53  

back and answer the question. The biggest tangent, what do you mean? Man, it’s good.

Hamza Khan  16:00  

Your shit was so consistent, I have to consistently explain the inconsistency of my week. And so I went from my parents, and then I just barely, Bailey joined me at some point in this, in this trip, and we both couldn’t work in the same place, so we decided to go to a we work, which is a whole other story, because I’m like, Yo, what the new been up to? Yeah, the one right by on, I think it was one university. It’s like, right on top of the MOS moss coffee, right across the street from the Fairmont Royal York. So that was dope, being in the we work. But I was just like, man, what is Adam Newman up to? And I went down a rabbit hole. Holy smokes, man. This guy’s up to no good all over again. Just putting it out there. Adam, if you’re listening to this, or if anybody’s bending, has the ability to bend Adams ear. Adam, use your gifts for good dude. Don’t do what you’re doing right now. I’m just saying that you have, you have the brains and you have the access to be able to create a better world, and you were doing the opposite. In my opinion, we can debate that

Herbert Lui  16:53  

later. But what was really cool, I’m in total agreement. Totally agree. You know what

Hamza Khan  16:57  

he’s up to, right? Like, he’s, he’s now, he’s now part of this organization. I don’t know what it’s called, but they’re essentially like, like a Blackrock that’s just buying up all of this commercial realist, sorry, all this residential real estate and just renting things out is just creating this massive property rental company. And I feel very strongly, almost, I have, like, borderline Marxist views when it comes to personal property, which we could talk about another time. But anyways, all that, all that’s to say, like, I want Adam Newman to succeed. But like, after watching the we work documentaries, after reading about the we work debacle, after writing about it in leadership reinvented, I’m just like, Dude, you have such an opportunity for a redemptive arc here. What are you doing? Dude? So I went there, but while I was in the we work, there was like such energy, because Bailey and I are riffing on this new organization, or set of organizations, that we’re building. So as you’re writing your book, we’re in the process right now of expanding out skills camp. As we’re approaching the 10th year anniversary, we’re putting all of our ideas into practice. But how do we disrupt ourselves? How do we create the type of organization that would put skills camp out of business? And we’re building that right now, and it’s really exciting. Lot of cool ideas that are bubbling up, including, and this is going to sound really weird for me to say out loud to another person, but I’m building a tech company. Okay, let’s

Herbert Lui  18:12  

go.

Hamza Khan  18:13  

I know I it’s so weird to say, but like, we just signed an MOA, or I don’t. I don’t know how much I can say, because we’re technically in stealth mode right now, but there’s, there is a CTO and technical co founder that I be working with, which is just a wild position that I’ve never actually worked with this closely. I’ve been part of tech organizations, been part of startups that have had tech divisions, but like now, I guess coming in as the CEO, founder. I’m going to have this person working with me, and I’m actually really looking forward to that, and I’m retraining my leadership muscles to be able to put all of these ideas that I’ve been speaking about and selling into practice. So that happened then I went to my brother’s wedding, and because it was an Indian wedding, there were like 10,000 events, and all of them were great. But imagine going from all of this sort of like building being with parents, experiencing the ups and downs of that relationship, going into the wedding, from the wedding, then releasing the first episode of new material. That was surreal to see that out in the world. And I’m like, Oh, this is really happening. Such a great feeling that I went from there to a birthday party that was a lot of fun. But at one point in the night, it started to get a little, a little, Eyes Wide Shut, ish, you know, there was two, two people who came out in full spandex, zebra outfits, and you know, they started twerking. And I’m like, oh, okay, we reached this. Year was that it was in Toronto. Dude, it was in Toronto.

Herbert Lui  19:43  

Which, which venue Are you allowed to say which venue This is,

Hamza Khan  19:46  

I can’t, I can’t put the people on blast. But it was a private birthday party. It was a lot of fun. But, like, at one point in the night, I was like, oh, man, like I, I totally understand, like, how this can go from just, you know, Dan. Saying vibing having a great time to, you know, wherever to to, you know, to lovely individuals and very fit individuals and animated individuals in zebra spandex and full masks and everything go so, you know, use your imagination. This is, this is where the parties can go. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was like, is there, baby? Oh, my goodness, we’re not gonna make it past one season at this straight man. I’m like, maybe we shouldn’t publish the transcripts of the show. I’m just saying. Maybe we should just take Bailey’s advice and just be like, if you guys just want to catch up, catch up. Don’t record a podcast.

Okay? Okay, let me wrap this up real quick. Shout out to the materialist, Vin. You guys are awesome, all three of you know, Bernice, Bailey and Evan, that’s the listenership right now. It’s like me, you our respective partners and our editor, the only people who listen to this right now. And I’m just, I personally know many, many who are listening to this. So shout out to all of you. So what’s been happening for me is, after that party, again, context switch, then I went up north to Orillia, to an RV park, where I celebrated Thanksgiving with Bailey’s family, and it’s just like the outfits changed the vernacular, change the way I was speaking and moving changed. I mean, it was a lot. And then I went from there back to another wedding event. This was up in Caledon, and then I completed some schoolwork. So like, in addition to everything that’s going on right now, I’m still, right now in a master’s program. And then, dude, the weekend finally subsided, and I had to go into hardcore keynote mode. And like last week, there were two major keynotes. One of them was for a large bank in Canada, and that was quite the experience. And then I immediately went from there to a large Real Estate Association in LA in the span of 24 hours. So in 24 hours, two different keynotes, two very different topics to very different audiences. And it was, it was playoff level. Shit, man. I’m like, I there is a version of Hamza that was not ready for this task maybe four years ago. And I’ve been gradually optimizing myself, including the 5am mornings, to be able to have that baseline from which I can dial up the intensity and just as easily dial it back down. So that wrapped up. I’m back here now episode two, I believe, will have dropped by the time that we published this one. And yesterday, my sister in law, Kelsey, came into town from Calgary, and we’ve just been having the best time here in New York. And dude, I’ll end by saying this one of the coolest things about being in New York and now living here is when you get to experience it through a quote, unquote, Outsider’s eyes, like when you have family and friends come to visit, and you get to see how excited they get about New York and the things that they want to do, and you get to just vicariously experience it with them. It’s just the best man. It reminds you of why you moved here in the first place, you know, especially after you pay rent, and you’re like, Man, I hate this place. I don’t want to leave. What am I doing here? You’re questioning you’re questioning your self worth constantly, you’re like, Ah, man, this is not working out. And then all it takes is just one person pulling out their phone and taking a photo of something that you’ve passed by now 100 times. And to them, it’s just so special. And like that, to me, is like, it’s so deeply validating of why we’re here, because we’re inviting the subconscious energy and creativity. We’re inviting the energy and the creativity from the city to seep into our subconscious and and give us that extra, extra spark, that extra, you know, you know, health bar, if you will, to keep going

Herbert Lui  24:15  

100% man, I was just thinking the same thing. I was catching up with a friend who had visited last year I was out of town. We just missed each other. And I was like, What do you think of the subways here? I was like, griping about a little bit. He’s like, Oh, I loved it. Like it was everywhere, even on the subway, like, everywhere you went. It was like, you’re in a movie. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s so true. Like it still is how I feel. And maybe it’s something that, like only people who move here will understand. But also even coming in, coming into Manhattan, is just always such a nice feeling, like it’s like the feeling of, I mean, when you’re visiting from outside New York into New York. It’s already like, you know, that’s on 10, right? That’s like, the most intense version of the feeling crossing one of the bridges, so on and so forth. But even coming into the city from Queens, a Queens is like, super cool. It’s like, yeah, the air is so fresh. I can’t believe it is good. It smells over there. And it’s like, it smells horrible, horrible, so polluted. It’s like more door up in here.

Hamza Khan  25:27  

You even look across to Brooklyn and you see basically Saurons tower over there too, right? That’s right, oh

Herbert Lui  25:33  

my gosh. That’s so true. And so it’s like, yeah, coming in though, from Queens into Manhattan is also really nice. It’s like a little break from from, you know, the heart of everything. But then you get back to it, and you’re like, Ah, it’s nice. It’s nice being back in the city, you know. So totally, I totally get it. Totally get it.

Hamza Khan  25:53  

I just texted you a picture. So I flew from LA I went to Washington. There was a lay over there. Then I came from Washington to New York. And usually when I’m traveling between Washington and New York, I usually take a different airlines, or sometimes I even take the train. But this path in particular cut around New York in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever flown before, and I landed into every single airport, but this view was spectacular on the day that it was and man, I was like, I was like a dog wanting to stick its head out of the window, like my head, my face was practically stuck to the window the entire flight as we descended into New York. That picture was just stunning.

Herbert Lui  26:28  

Man, beautiful. It’s JFK. Is that right?

Hamza Khan  26:31  

This was LGA, actually, LGA with a weird entrance into, like, another part, like another, another runway that I don’t think I’ve ever taken off from or landed in, or maybe, maybe I didn’t. I just wasn’t present. But I was feeling a little bit tired after delivering this back to back keynote and going through that week of context switching, but that first sight of the skyline was like a quick charge, like somebody stuck a USBC in my stomach. I was like, Oh, here we go. I’m back. Lightning charge. I’m here. I’m ready to rock. And that energy, that energy, carried forth until last night, where we went to this restaurant. Actually, we were in, I believe Chelsea, there’s a restaurant called Medusa, M, E, D, U, Z, a or Z, a for our US listeners, right? Medusa, second time there. It’s a really neat concept. It’s like a Mediterranean, like Israeli, Greek fusion kind of situation, but I believe that it’s a new category of restaurant that I’ve only experienced a couple of times, where it’s like a club and a restaurant simultaneously. The music is on way too loud. There’s entertainers moving around. Food is fantastic, but it is just so chaotic there. But other people found it very calming and relaxing, like the birthday girl. She was like, in awe the entire night. She’s like, Oh my God, you know me. You know my soul. And I’m like, Yeah, it’s really cool, man. Like, I’m glad you’re having fun here. But I’m an aging millennial. I got tinnitus in my left ear. I have to yell. Not only do I have to yell, it’s like, the music, the acoustics are like, messing with my equilibrium here. And so at one point I was just like, Bailey, I actually need to go like, I think I’m losing my I’m losing my balance here, and I don’t think it’s the weed. So we had to dip early, and then I came, and then I conked out at like, midnight, and then I woke up at one in the morning. I’m like, Hey, where’s everybody? Like, why aren’t we partying anymore? And everyone was knocked out. And so that’s when I had all the energy, and I started brainstorming about today’s topic. And now here we are. Wow.

Herbert Lui  28:20  

I mean, you, you say it’s discombobulated, but I feel like that’s also very Virgil, like, life, you know, it’s like, very like, oh, like, I’m, I’m everywhere, I’m, I’m nowhere, I’m like, my phone is my office kind of situation, you know, like, that’s a and you’re on the planes, you know, you’re doing all this stuff, man. So very let

Hamza Khan  28:42  

me just go there full circle to something that you said earlier. So you essentially gave Virgil’s riff on the idea of that perfect is the enemy of good. I like the way that Virgil said it a lot better. Well, how did he say it exactly

Herbert Lui  28:52  

again? So there’s, there is no failure. Is like, one motto, right? Like he was like, in the middle of his day, he’s like, oh, there’s no way I’m gonna get this thing done. And then he like, he’s like, wait, I never say that to myself. There’s, there’s like, it’s just, it’s just doing the thing, and then wherever it is by the time limit, that’s what it’s gonna be. There’s, you know, there’s no failure. And the other version of that is, let me check my blog real quick actually, because I actually wrote this down. And

Hamza Khan  29:27  

while you’re saying that like, I’ll riff on, I’ll riff on something real quick, like it, especially when you move to New York, something becomes so clear to you, as far as time is concerned, because the New York minute is absolutely real, and I believe it’s rooted in phrases law. Phrases law, for those of you who are unfamiliar, it’s the law that states that time has a subjective dimension that varies according to the personal interest you have in the thing that you’re doing. So if you love what you’re doing, if you’re engaged, a unit of time will move by very quickly compared to if you hate what you’re doing, and that same amount of time will feel like an eternity. But here in New York, Time moves by very quickly because people are so dialed in, whether they want to be or not. I. And so I say that to say that with our lives being as chaotic as they are right now, our challenge as creatives, as people who enjoy work, and I identify as a amateur business athlete trying to go pro, my challenge is that I don’t have time. I have to make time. I have to be very intentional about how I pull from this chaotic tapestry of events, interactions, thoughts and identify a priority, something that needs to get done. And so Herbert, you were saying earlier that like you want to take your own sweet time with this book, but if you take your own sweet time with the book, it’s probably never going to get done, considering the multitude the plethora of things that are competing for your time, energy and attention. So you almost just have to commit to an arbitrary deadline, simulate some constraints, and then let Parkinson’s Law take the wheel. And Parkinson’s Law, I would say, is probably my favorite productivity principle, or productivity law, if you will, dynamic, whatever you want to call it, it states that work expands so as to fill the time allocated for its completion. So Herbert, if you don’t give yourself a deadline, you’re gonna work on this book until it meets, until it meets. I was gonna say meets and matches, meets until it reaches your definition of perfect. But knowing the artist that you are, it’s probably never gonna reach that point. But last week, in last week’s episode, we talked about your boy who banged out a book in 30 days, and I’m still, I’m still, like, in disbelief at that speed. I need to read this book because I’m like, You need to grab me a copy. How good could it actually be if you, if you wrote this in 30 days? Like, I’ve taken 30 days to write blog posts, bro. Like, how’d you, how’d you bang out a whole book? But it’s you’re saying that it meets your your standard of thoughtfulness and quality. I believe that, because I’m also a believer in the Picasso napkin idea, right? He didn’t actually take 30 days to write this. He took 30 years to write it. That’s exactly because, like my first book, the burnout gamble, took three years to write. Leadership reinvented four months. So I totally get it. And all of this is to say, like, kudos to you for recognizing the thing that you need to do here, because this, this is where I honestly think majority of creatives and people get stuck. They have these bright ideas, but they don’t actually know how to translate them into action. And you just have to, you just have to pick the constraint, honestly, 100% sorry, did you find the quote?

Herbert Lui  32:20  

I got the quote. I couldn’t agree more. I think that the so here’s a quote, right? Just to thread the needle here, perfection doesn’t advance anything as a creative is what he says. And I mean, and then there’s this, there’s this much longer bit that I excerpted, which is, it goes like this, and I’m reading it. And so this is what he said. The only failure is not to try designers, creators or artists. We have a natural convention to be tormented a little bit of an inner struggle. Is the work living up to its fullest potential, or is it as great as the work that you idolize from your design idols? But at the end of the day, it’s your body of work. And so the amount of work and the refinement of that work will define who you are as a creative just this challenge of not being fearful, of perfectionism, of being able to do it, it resulted, well, for him, it resulted in just one idea that he wanted. I mean, I’ll quote him. I didn’t quote him at the end, but that was, that was me calling the rest of it. And so for him, like, he, he, he went to RISD he like, loves a logo there. He bought a few sweatshirts off the campus store. And then he like, went to the buildings, and was like, okay, cool. I gotta, like, find a screen printer. Couldn’t find a screen printer. He like, had to ask students to help him. And all this stuff, right? He found, like, a garment bag lying around. So he like, put it on as a transparency layer for, excuse me, for one of the one of the sweatshirts. So that was one idea. And then the second idea, he like, cut the sweatshirt down the middle. And he was like, you know, couldn’t find a zipper for it yet, but like, you know. And so towards his speech, he still didn’t have any of like, he still didn’t have a finished product by the conventional definition of the word, right? But he has, he had these two ideas, one of them he was really excited by, which was the transparency layer. And to me, like, I Googled, oh, like, did, did, like, Did offway make anything with a transparency layer after. And it turns out, a year after his speech, they released a collaboration with ramoa That was like a transparency layer over the classic remote suitcase. Yeah. And I was like, Whoa, that. I mean, I don’t know where in the creative process he was along that already, because I imagine, you know, a year is not a lot of lead time for suitcases, but at the same time, remote already had, like, its production process going. So I was like, Wow. I wonder even if it was just an elaboration on the idea, or a revisiting of it, though I thought that was really cool. And it was like, oh, like a student watching that got a chance. Even me like, I mean, I am in many. Ways. I am a student of Virgil’s. We I had, you know, I never had a chance to work with him. Had like, two close brushes. One time was like, here in New York, I was going to the Ludlow house. I was like, oh, I’ll just do some work real, real quick. And he was gonna do like, a Warby Parker thing nearby. That was, Oh, I’ll go after and I’m like, walking towards the place to love the house and, and I’m like, oh, like, there’s this big group of people. They’re like, really partying. And I was like, wait, I think that’s Virgil. And like, they go in, I go in too. And like, he, like, holds the door, like, right behind. He’s like, hey, you know, oh my god, this is so cool. I’m like, No way. Look at the sign in book and it says Virgil, just in, like, all caps. I was like, Yo, so cool, so cool. And then another time, he was speaking in Toronto at like, free space, I think some it was like a Canon event and like, that was also so cool, you know, we, like, got a brief Convo out of it after, but I was like, Man, this guy is just so cool. Virgil is just so cool. Was and is, you know, and so, anyways, yeah to, yeah. Like, it’s just so interesting. Like, Virgil is the perfect encapsulation of this playful aspect. And let’s like, definitely, you know, we’ve been setting up for a while now. Let’s get into it. Man, I think let’s get into it. You know, we were, we were talking about the creative process. We’ve been talking about it, and this aspect of perfectionism, I think you deal with, I deal with, if you’re listening to this, you probably deal with it too. It’s what makes you kind of want to do good work in the first place. So it’s kind of hard to do that without that sense, right? But at the same time, it often gets in the way of doing good work. And so I wanted to really quickly introduce a way of thinking about this, right? So I’ll tell this story. It’s in creative doing. It’s also at my blog, but it’s basically the main character is professor, Betty flowers. She is, she’s a professor, and, you know, she’s like, lecturing her class, and she’s talking about, okay, what’s the hardest part of writing for everyone. And one person is like, oh, starting the writing is, like, the most difficult part. I can’t, I can’t, like, even get started. Like, it just, I just get blocked. And another one’s like, actually finishing it is way harder, though. Like, when you, when you when you’ve started, and you’ve got maybe, like, three paragraphs, but then you’re like, Wait, this isn’t really any good, and I gotta, like, tinker with it and edit and make it better and and so she, like, pauses the Convo there, and she’s like, okay, she writes down four words on the blackboard, and it’s, it goes like this. It goes like idiot, Carpenter, architect and judge. And the whole point like and each of these, each writer has one of these, has all four of these aspects in their lives. And the whole point is, you can’t get the energies and aspects mixed up. So you don’t want the architect doing work when the the idiot’s supposed to be doing work, and each each of these roles or these aspects play a specific role, or like a specific function in the writing process, and, I think, in the creative process in general as well. So the idiot is just their only job is to make something new, and they can’t really do anything else, but that’s something that the other three people can’t do at all. Right?

There’s another analogy of this where, I think it was Susan Sontag. She splits that up into like, the the nut and the moron. And the nut is like, the person that like that like, comes up with the material, but the moron is the one that like lets it out, right? It’s like, oh God. Like, why did I say that is kind of the morons job. But in Betty flowers case and Professor flowers case, it was, it was just one, one aspect, it’s the idiot. Then there’s the architect. Okay, so once the idiots done their work, right? You got that really bad first draft in there, the architect comes in and starts making sense out of it, from a structural and even developmental perspective. They’re like, okay, cool. Like, what is this thing? What’s the raw material I got here? What? What am I trying to build? You know, okay, let’s, let’s really try to put the structure together and to make something out of all of this, right? I’m going to draft up the blueprint. I’m going to, you know, actually supervise the building of this thing. And that’s where I am right now. I feel like and my architect is going to be on full like that. That person has a difficult job because there’s a really tight time constraint. So the architect needs to come in and make sense of what. The idiots done. Then there’s the carpenter who works. So the architects got the plans together. Now the carpenter comes in and polishes and builds everything on a word by word, sentence by sentence level, where it’s like, okay, cool. Like, this is, this is how this phrase should sound. This is how this paragraph should flow to the next one and things like that. Yeah. And then finally, you got the judge. The judge comes in. They’re like, I’m gonna fix this. This doesn’t look right. That’s not good. This makes no sense. Exit out, you know? And they really are that super tasteful, super critical. They’re probably the inner voice of your favorite author, the voice of your English teacher, the voice of people you admire, the voice of a critic, right? Very critical, but it makes sure that everything is really, really well done as much as possible before it goes out there. And the key, once again, I want to emphasize this, the key is to not let these energies get mixed up together. You want to know where you are in the process and which aspect to call upon to do their job. So I’m very clearly now. I’m like, okay, cool. You know the idiot, and I use this word very endearingly, as I’m sure Professor flowers intends as well. The idiot is like, Okay, I’m tapping out soon. Like, I’m signing out of work. The architects got to come in and be like, okay, like, how does this thing actually work? What are we even trying to do here? Right? Yeah, man. And, and similarly, you don’t want the judge looking over the idiot’s shoulder and going like, hey. Like, what, what are you doing? This is horrible. Like, blah, blah, blah, because then the idiots just can be okay, like, this is horrible. I’m just gonna stop. And really, I think the theme of, of what I want to talk about today was the idiot, right? It’s like this playful aspect. We can, first of all, maybe rebrand the idiot into something less sure, less of a harsh name jester, the fool, the Jester. Some people call it the artist. Some people call it, you know, a child, maybe, right? Yeah, the inner child. Very much. So I stuck with idiot, because that’s what Professor flowers used for the story. But really, I think that one of the key aspects, whether, no matter where you are in your journey, is basically nurturing, nurturing, this playful aspect, this idiot aspect of your work. And also like making sure, you know, I think that on the day to day, we we feed the judge, we feed the carpenter and the architect, and we train them a lot, and the world kind of trains them as well, right? We, we learn from everyone else what that sounds like. However, I think with with the idiot, they’re kind of neglected a little bit right? Like we don’t always do fun stuff, we don’t always like play, we don’t always make time to do that, and our jobs don’t really need us to either, so we just kind of neglect them. And I think that one really critical key to get through perfectionism, to get through all of the painful like tormented parts of the creative process, is to really nurture the idiot a little bit more, and also to to appreciate them and to tap into their spontaneity and to really play. I think that’s the key. I’ll pause there, because that’s, that’s where the story, the story of all of this, begins. And I want to hear what you think.

Hamza Khan  43:27  

Oh, my God. Now, now, new materialist, you fully understand why Herbert and I had to create a show. Because, dude, as you were saying that, I was taking notes, and I spawned, I kid you not, no less than 10 different paths to explore over here, 15 different episodes. There’s so much we can talk about, just for example, in you know, and I’ll park this very quickly, because I want to come back and stay stay on topic here. But just one of the ideas is in your description of each of the different archetypes that exist, how well they map onto sort of the ID, the super ego and the ego. So there’s that, right? So true. You can also look at them as sort of individual components of a project. You essentially described a creative director, a CEO, a COO like and I’m thinking about this as I’m building my new business. I’m like, what role do I need to play over here? Because if I’m going to be the CEO of this company, my inclination is to want to be the fool. But if I’m the fool as a CEO, I’m going to be Adam Newman, basically. So how’s that for a deep call back in my my role is to be a judge. And then it got me thinking about, hmm, why? Why am I so familiar with these archetypes? Because I remember I was struggling two years ago, when I sought out a coach and a therapist with who was showing up for my keynotes, I was not in control. I didn’t I didn’t actually integrate this team. And so there’s like, a whole other topic about, like, what does it look like to actually have that conversation that Congress with all of these different voices in your head, and get them to sit together and decide and. And negotiate who is going to take over in what situation. Because what was happening for me as a speaker is I would have the critic that was one of the characters in my being take over, and the critic was running the show. The critic was running the show during crucial moments where I needed to be on stage and actually be loose and be fun and be spontaneous. But I was having somebody sort of tap down, lock down, all of my ideas, and it started to present itself physically and then eventually emotionally and by the end, mentally. So there’s a lot that I want to offer over here, but you know, I will say this, what’s been super cool for me over the last year is really playing with the idea that, I think it was Pablo Picasso introduced, and he said something to the effect of, I hope I get this right. He said, All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up. Something like that. I

Herbert Lui  45:56  

hope I got that right. Yes, yes. Okay,

Hamza Khan  45:59  

and last night, I admitted something at the dinner table, and I really need to take some time and think about this. But, you know, I was, I was surrounded by, you know, people that I love, you know, my wife, Bailey, or two sisters. And the thing that I admitted yesterday was like, I actually like I in my soul. I want to get back to just creating. I love the career that I have right now. I love the work that I get to do. It’s everything I want to be and more. But I think my soul will be restless if I don’t actually put pen to paper and commit to doing creative projects. And let me be more specific, I kind of want to make music videos. I kind of want to get back into Yeah, dude. Yeah, wow, straight up. I know, I know it’s a massive irritation in my life that I stopped playing, I stopped having fun, I stopped doing the thing that I was doing before I had to choose in grade 11 or 12 what I was supposed to my life.

Herbert Lui  47:00  

That’s so cool. It’s you. When was the last music video made? What was what to like? Paint the picture here,

Hamza Khan  47:07  

bro, I was 17 man like it was, it was a long time ago. So I’m an aging millennial. I came up in the age of pirating music and pirating videos. And there was a thing that if you were an anime fan and a fan of hip hop, specifically the the mashup of Lincoln Park. One of the things that you did is you made Dragon Ball Z music videos, right? And this was, bro, this is how it started. Man,

Herbert Lui  47:31  

what kind of what other anime Are you watching right now? What’s the other stuff? Hold on. And this

Hamza Khan  47:35  

is, this is my big regret that I’m not watching anime right now. Like I actually stopped watching anime. I know, dude, I know I was deep into it for a while, and I don’t want to be a consumer anymore. I don’t want to I want to be a prosumer. I want to be a producer and a consumer. Something about the idea that all the guys that I grew up with who were part of this thing called NBP, which is no budget productions, and we just took that sort of Scarborough hustle, we took that lack of resources and we channeled it into creating in different formats, the reality that we wanted. We grew up on G unit on Lincoln Park. We grew up on Snoop, all of that. And so we would take these influences and then take these visuals from Dragon Ball Z and early movies like The Matrix and whatnot, and just create these fun worlds for ourselves. We had these little film festivals in each other’s basements, and that eventually online, man. And like, we were, we were doing some pretty innovative things at the time. You know, our work was being shown at film festivals. We were being asked to produce music videos for up and coming artists. And then eventually, like, we had to grow up, and we had to start paying bills, and we had to go to school, and we had to choose which major we wanted to go into. And like, everybody was doing it reluctantly. And I was one of the holdouts. I was one of the people being like, No man, like, let’s, let’s keep on trying to do this thing. And, you know, I love them all. But like, you know, they become accountants, they become lawyers, you know, they become, you know, IT specialists. They’ve gone into real estate, so on and so forth. Everybody’s doing well, they’ve got families, but there’s two of us, and we just had this moment at azims wedding, my brother’s wedding, where we sat down and we’re like, Yo, you and I are. His name is Osama, and we’re like, you and I are the ones who went into that world, and then we sort of doubled back, like he he was going deep into accountancy, and then, like he just pulled the shoot. He’s like, No, forget it. I’m gonna go learn how to do visual effects. Moved to Vancouver and started doing visual effects for movies. Dude, he was on the Spider Man, into the spider verse movie, like he’s actually credited. Oh, right. And so for me, here I am like, I’m doing speaking, leadership, entrepreneurship, all of this. I’m loving it. But you know which part of it I love the most? Man, it’s like when I get to jam with the videographers, when I get to jam with the photographers, that moment before I take the stage where we do a little bit of creative direction, it’s like, yo. So I’m gonna go on stage. When I say this, come behind me. Get this shot. You. And I’m now talking to the person working on my reel, who happens to be a Sama, so we’ve kind of collaborated back again, like we’ve done this whole amazing journey. And now he just sent me a message right before he logged on. He’s like, look, what do you think about this song over here? And I’m like, Oh, dude, that’s so epic. And he’s like, he showed me a video where it was used for like, an NBA sizzle reel. And I’m like, Oh, that’s perfect. I can see how we can, like, do this for a keynote version. But all of this is to say I’m doing this stuff right now, and it’s activating the part of me that is that inner child, and I’m realizing that I am at my best. I’m at my happiest when I’m playing. And look, when you come into the new material universe, you’re going to come into it. And when you get here, I imagine that you probably know a version of Hamza that you discovered through social media, through speaking, through writing, through teaching, you’ve met me in another realm. You’ve met me when the judge, when the architect, when my other faculties were in charge. When I’m talking to Herbert, I’m letting you know right now that like I am 100% in fool mode. I mean, just rewind back to the opening where those are. Man, like, like, the opening of this is so ridiculous. If my speakers bureau hears this, I think I’m gonna get an email. They’d be like, What are you doing? Dude, like, why are you rapping? Pam, like, we’re trying to sell you to RBC over here. Like you’re making ditty jokes. Come on, bro, take it easy. Well, like, I’ll

Herbert Lui  51:19  

say really quickly, I’ll say those Virgil lectures, man. He’s like, I’m probably going to, like, get in trouble. He said, literally, the same thing as I’m gonna get an email from someone IKEA for showing this stuff that probably shouldn’t be showing you. But you know, it’s all good, right? And I think that’s like, a really special thing. It’s like, exactly what you said. So all of

Hamza Khan  51:39  

this is to say, let me, let me, let me. Thread the needle here. What we need to do as creatives is really be intentional about recognizing and rewarding our inner child, rewarding that fool, that Jester. Because I truly believe that is where the best ideas come from. Just think about, you know, I love to make movie references, so I’m just gonna make one right now that comes to mind, everything, everywhere, all at once for all at once. Phenomenal movie, right? It’s just one of the most powerful movies I’ve ever seen. I remember sitting in the Chicago Soho House watching a screening of it, and me and Bailey just sat speechless for 20 minutes after Wow, and we were crying, Oh,

Herbert Lui  52:13  

wow. What a detailed ad, too. Man, that’s a great solo house.

Hamza Khan  52:17  

Oh yes. So good man, with their with their proper screening room and the little section on the side over there, but there’s that. So the thing, I forget the guy’s name. Man, I’m blanking over here, but he was in the Goonies. He was the architect, dude, Khan, Khan. Shout out to Khan, right? Khan, phenomenal movie. Man, yo. I’m just saying that right now. I’m visual, like, the visuals from that movie are seared into my subconscious, man like, oh my god, that one scene where him, him and homegirl are smoking outside, and he’s like, in another lifetime, I would have loved doing I would have loved doing taxes with you.

Herbert Lui  52:50  

Oh my man. That was a Yo, that was that was a heartbreaking it was a beautiful moment. It was a beautiful moment and unlocked something in me, for sure, but Khan’s career On a side note, wow, that’s a whole other Yeah, we got to save that for another episode. Dream guest, dream guest, yeah, we got four. Now we got four. That guy’s an inspiration. 100% inspiration.

Hamza Khan  53:16  

Oh my gosh, 100% and, and so is she as well, because I’ve just started re watching all of the Bond films, and I forgot that she was a Bond girl. And I’m like, man, what Michelle? Was a Bond girl? Michelle, bro, boom, blew my mind. The world is not enough. Tomorrow Never Dies. She’s a Bond girl in there, and a really good one too. Does it like subverts the tropes of the of the Bond girls? But anyways, the point I wanted to make with Khan’s character is a big part of being able to skip timelines in that universe is he has to do silly shit. And it can’t just be planned silly shit. It has to be truly spontaneous. He has to take out a piece of gum and stick it on his forehead. He has to, like, give himself a Purple Nurple. He has to, like, give a random person a wedgie, like, he has to do wild, spontaneous shit that Virgil would say, is going to get him in trouble, but that is what allows him to skip timelines. And I think that that metaphor is so powerful that when breakthroughs, literally through time and space in the movie are only possible when you do something that nobody expects and for you to be at your best as a creative person. And just so we’re clear, if you’ve made three episodes in you know that Herbert and I use creative and artist interchangeably. This is not a show just for artists. If you’re an artist listening, we’re honored, but we’re really speaking to anybody that is curious about creativity, that wants to bring and enhance creativity in any format. And I’m telling you, as somebody that prides themselves on being creative. I’m at my best when I’m being silly, when I’m being when I’m having fun, when I’m truly engaging with the material and in love with it. And I think this past week is like a perfect example of that night and day. There’s two, two keynotes that I did within within 24 hours. One, I would say the details were managed, and I just want. To be clear. So this was for a large bank in Canada, and the client was very involved. And I like this because usually organizations bring me in to be the expert, and they sort of, they give me a lot of, a lot of, a lot of permission space to do what I want to do. But I I always feel like a beginner. I always feel like a fool. And so there’s there’s a part of me that feels a huge level of responsibility to say the right thing and do the right thing for the client, and I don’t really get a lot of constructive criticism. And so when I have a client that’s very hands on, that wants to review the deck, that wants to review the notes, that wants to see me practice, that wants to tailor the message, it feels very involved, and it gives me flashbacks to what I experienced and referred to in our last episode, where we had that critical process in Review for my for myself. It was with Pearson, for Herbert. It was one of the companies that he worked with. And it can leave you, if you’re not careful, feeling less than and so when I eventually delivered the keynote, right before I took the stage, I was feeling a heaviness. I was like, Man, I have to deliver material here that is CO created. A lot of it has been heavily influenced by the client. Some of it you are not fully I know I want to be I want to be careful with how I say this. This might offend my political connects. I I loved the presentation, I loved the material, but there was very clearly some parts of it that weren’t mine, right? And as somebody who engages in the solo sport of speaking, because when I’m when I’m actually speaking, it’s a solo sport, but don’t get it twisted. It’s very much a team effort that goes into that production of the solo speaking, I know that I have a tendency to get to the parts that aren’t generated by me authentically, 100% and gloss over them, speed through them, and engage with them in a way that I think is obvious to the audience, that I don’t feel as passionately about. So I had to remind myself right before I took the stage to be like, No, dude, you you actually love this. Like, and the way that you can demonstrate that you love this is to have fun with it. So what you’re going to do up there is not read off those notes. You’re going to look at the slide, capture the essence, and you’re going to riff on it. So do a free association. That’s my that’s my cue to have fun on style, like see the visual, know where the audience is, and then free associate, and just trust that the How will figure itself out. If you know what you want to say, the How will figure itself out. So I did that, and I was able to deliver a really good presentation, in my opinion. But then immediately after I went to LA where the client was so hands off that they asked me for the slides right before I went on stage, like they had no idea what I was going to present about. They had a general topic, a general theme, but they’re like, We trust you to go up there and do what you want to do. And, man, I just went up there and I had fun. It was basically a stand up routine with an educational component to it, and my energy was noticeably different because I was playing, because I was jamming, I just felt much more present now in terms of the audience impact, I think they both did the same thing, but the common denominator between those experiences was I had fun, I played, and it could have easily gone Another way, had I chose with the bank client to not do that, I could have delivered a very stale, very formulaic presentation. Alternatively with the presentation in LA, I could have just phoned it in and done a candid plan presentation and not free associated the way that I did, long, roundabout way of saying that I am now experiencing, at 37 years of age, a sort of renaissance in my in my work, and I now believe that play, being foolish, having fun, being present is a superpower. It is truly the thing that is separating my good content from my great content. And it’s not even close.

Herbert Lui  59:01  

Wow, that’s it was very interesting to hear the big shift you made was like, Hey, I’m going to loosen up a little bit, right? I’m not going to follow off the notes. I’m not even going to think ahead to the end of the presentation. I’m just, I’m going to look at the slide. I’m going to look at what I need to say, and then let’s give it like two minutes, and then it’s on to the next one, right? Yeah. And I think there is something really special about being spontaneous, and it takes a degree of maybe practice as well. Like, there’s a fine line between too structured and too spontaneous, right? I imagine, for example, if someone was, if someone was just starting out speaking, and they’re like, Oh, I’m just gonna go with like, no notes and stuff could go either way. The audience impact. They might have a lot of fun on stage, but the. Audience impact might not be as heavy, but for you, you’re like, very well practiced very well. You know, you’ve delivered so many of these speeches, it’s almost second nature to you. Like, look, this is like my home turf. Like the stage is so familiar, I can loosen up a little bit more now. And I think that’s where, like, the nuance and, like a lot of allowing your, your inner child, to play comes from, it’s like you got to trust yourself at the end of the day, right? And even if, let’s say, even if the audience impact is lower or the results don’t turn out as you wanted, you’re like, well, I’ll get them on the next one, you know. Like, it’s like constantly being allowing yourself to take those risks, and putting yourself in situations where the risk is not too much for the the inner child, the playful aspect, the idiot, whatever you want to call it, that side of you, it’s not too much for them to bear. Because sometimes that’s also the case where, like, you know, I mean, I don’t I think that when you’re a kid, sometimes you’re not set up to succeed. Do they just throw you into the deep end, right? And that’s also not, like, the most conducive to a playful kind of thing. It’s very much, hey, like, I needed to prepare. But then also now, like, let’s let go and let’s see where this goes. And there’s, like, a fine balance between both of those things, but I do love the call to action here, which is, hey, like in something you’re really familiar with, or something you’re not feeling enthusiastic about. Let’s see what you can do with it, and let’s see if you know, the next time that comes up, why don’t you try to have some fun with it? What can you do to make this a little bit more fun? What can you do to make it a little bit more honest or a little bit more humorous, right? All of that. And how would you like, how would you do it? What do you want to do with it? And also, maybe the last thing is, like, how would you mess it up? Like, that’s the interesting thing is, like, what can you do to, like, really leave your fingerprints on it and like, to tweak it the way that you would want to tweak it, because that’s your signature. So a little riff there on what you said, which is

Hamza Khan  1:02:08  

brilliant man. And let me see if I can, like, condense this into a question for you, right? So, like, how would somebody do this? How would somebody get started nurturing, empowering and rewarding that playful aspect. And I love, I love the phrasing, playful aspect, by the way, it just seems, let’s stick

Herbert Lui  1:02:25  

with that. Yeah, yeah. I think that there. I think the process actually, I mean, to start off with it might feel really mechanical, because you’re like, I have to, like, remember, to learn how to play. This is really weird, but that is effectively what you’re trying to do. You’re like trying to go back to like the inner four or five year old, because nobody has to be taught how to play. For SAR, you leave a kid with a with a paper and pencil, or an iPad or whatever it is. They know how to have fun with it. They do just no instructions required. And I think for many of us, we just kind of forget along the way sometimes. So the key is to try to remember it. And there are all sorts of ways you can do that. I think that for me, I found a I found the feeling I was going for in improv comedy. So I, you know, the there was a situation. I mean, I’ll tell a quick story, which is back in maybe 2016 late 2016 I was running my own business, and things were going horribly. I was like, you know, client work was really fluctuating. I think I just signed a new one right when I needed it too is like, just bridging me over. I had, like, my first month in the red and I was like, Oh, this is, like, really stressful. And long story short, I was like, not really taking good care of myself either. This I was dealing with the stress by like, eating horrible food, but super delicious, right? I was not eating breakfast. I was just like, drinking like a, like, a coffee, and then like, going straight into work and and like, crashing maybe around three, and that’s when I’ll eat, you know, like, What

Hamza Khan  1:04:07  

year was this? Dude, 2016 maybe 2016 Dude, this is when you had, like, a strong Asian middle part.

Herbert Lui  1:04:15  

Nah. Maybe that was more recent. I feel like maybe, I don’t know, I’m losing track of my sorry, you were stress eating.

Hamza Khan  1:04:24  

Yeah, I was stress eating.

Herbert Lui  1:04:26  

I was drinking a lot of caffeine, I was drinking a lot of booze, and my stomach just really wasn’t having it. It was like, look like, this is this is not good, not good. And so I started, you know, I started, like, having trouble, like, like, like, I just had a lot of stomach acid. And I was like, man, what is going on? So I went to the doctor, and they’re like, You seem fine. I think it’s just stress. And I was like, that’s like, so frustrating to me to hear. And I was like, Well, okay, I don’t really know how to fix the stress, but maybe I can relax. Relax a little more, right? Like that seems like the opposite. So I took a month, and I started work with a new client. And while I was doing that, I also just started doing, like, the most relaxing things I could think of. So I remembered a friend that told me about when they were really stressed. They went to improv comedy, and they really loved it. They joined a troop and everything. They went in the deep end. So I was, Okay, I’ll try that. I think, like, I there was, like, swimming, right? There’s like, a pool at the Sheraton, I think, or maybe it was the Hilton, it was the Hilton. Yeah, I was like, half in and half out. Is really cool. Yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:05:39  

I know. Because, like, there’s

Herbert Lui  1:05:39  

like, these, there’s, like, the steam is coming up in the winter. This is winter, yeah. And then there was, there were, like, a handful of other things I forget. I totally like it slips my those are the two big ones. So I started going to gym again, and that, I started eating breakfast again. And, you know, healthier things, right? Eggs and oatmeal, just boring breakfast, but helpful. And I started doing all of those things. And that was how I started doing improv comedy. I would just do, like, one a week. I would drop into class and I wasn’t drinking, because I was like, Oh, I I want my stomach to heal up so I’m not going to drink. And after two hours of dropping into like an intro improv class, it felt like I had two beers. Because the improv class is so special. You go in and they, first of all, it’s like 12 people have never seen each other before. I’m going in without friends. I just went solo. And some of them know each other. Most of us don’t. So they do all these fun exercises to build the group together, and then they start doing like these, yes and exercises, right? So yes a yes, and exercises, in case you’re unfamiliar with, it is basically, there’s, you know, there’s a scenario that someone suggests, and then they’re like, acting it out, and then somebody else joins them and said yes, and I’m gonna do this, or yes, I’m gonna do that. The only rule is, you can’t say no. So there’s, like, all of right, there’s all of these things that just keep escalating. And you’re like, oh, like, this turned out to be such an interesting story, just when you like, mash yes and two or three brains together, and it was you leave feeling so uninhibited. You’re like, oh, like, I feel so loose. I feel so free. And I that is usually how I feel after drinking two beers. I remember, like, going to a dinner after with a friend and and like, their friends and like, I got laughs like I’ve never heard before. Like I was like, man, I’ve never been this funny before in my life. But also, like, it was just so because my brain was, like, primed on improv. You know, it’s like, so free and like, I just didn’t really care if I got the laugh or not. I was just like being me. It felt like I was free to be me. And so that’s the feeling that I aim for, that’s like, what I consider like a buffet, for the playful aspect, for me, right? I think for for you, it’s the music videos, clearly, right? There’s, but there’s also so many other things in this world, like for somebody else, it could be playing music and just jamming. It could be like writing poetry. It could be drawing on a on a napkin for like five minutes. It could be reading outside. You know, it could be whatever it is, long the that’s a long winded answer, but I wanted to say the whole thing, because beautiful. I didn’t go out looking for a playful aspect of me. I really was like, Yo, I’m super stressed. And the doctor told me I need to not stress. And so this is what I’m trying to do. And it just so happened that that’s where I remembered, oh, this is how you play as a grown up now, and it was a really safe environment to do that. I went back like so many times, and it was, it was great fun. This is a reminder to self to also like New York’s the place to do it, man, I should be going to these more.

Hamza Khan  1:08:56  

Let me ask you a question, dude. Is Yeah, is one of the reasons you and Bernice moved to New York to play, not

Herbert Lui  1:09:02  

explicitly, man, I’m gonna be honest with you, I feel like one of the

Hamza Khan  1:09:06  

Chicago or like, why not? You know, Washington or Sydney? Yeah, I

Herbert Lui  1:09:12  

think, I think the big thing was work at the time. Man, with New York, like, but Bernice is an artist, and I had, I work in tech, so I, you know, previously, and so I had gotten a job offer at figma, and the set, like the simple, even just the simple math of it, they’re like, Oh, we could hire you in Toronto, but the salary is, like, twice as much if you go to New York. I’m like, well, like, Okay, I’ll take the I’ll take twice the salary. Then, right, and the rest of the team was here and all the stuff. And I think so. I mean, now that we’re saying it, though, I think that was the conscious part of me saying, hey, like, this is a really great opportunity. But there definitely was a subconscious or unconscious experience of like, hey, like, I came here a lot throughout the 2010s all like, I never even. Considered moving here because I thought it was impossible. I was like, you know, there’s too much stuff going on. I’ll never get anything done, and it’s so expensive. And like, what about the visa situation? And so this opening, again, kind of presented itself. And I was like, Well, all I need to do is say yes, so let’s say yes and see where it goes. And that was kind of the whole, the whole, I don’t think that was the whole force, but that was one of the driving through lines for why we moved here. And Bernice, of course, the city oozes, are we both love art. She’s a practicing artist. So, yeah, it’s, there was a no brainer there, from from her perspective, I think,

Hamza Khan  1:10:35  

is it a reason why you’re remaining in New York?

Herbert Lui  1:10:38  

I think it could be, man, I think it really could be, I’ll say this. I don’t know. It’s up in the air how long I’m gonna be here. I don’t, I don’t know if this is, like, the place we’re gonna settle down. That being said, though, that that like, that sense of impermanence also makes me, like, soak the city in up a lot more. Like, almost every day, I’m like, oh, I want to, like, just make the most of it. I want to just really enjoy it. But the same time a part of me, you know, we I see these, I mean, I’m, I’m around, like, like, the NYU area a lot, like, it’s just, like, not that far from where I am. Or, like, Pace University is really close by as well. I see all these kids running around, not like actual kids, but like, you know, these teenagers. And I was like, oh, man, I really wish I moved here in my 20s, because, like, you really have, like, you really have that sense of uninhibited, whatever, right? Like, yes, I’ll spend $100 on a concert ticket, no problem. And, and it’s like, now I’m like, I don’t know if I would spend, like, the last person I went to see for that amount of money was Ronnie Chang and it was really good. But I was also like, well, like, I’m not doing this every weekend. Whereas, as a student, you’re like, so much more careless. The playful aspect is so strong aspect, right, right? Right? But now it’s like, oh, like, the, you know, there the the math equivalent of the architect, like the financial planner, the CFO, is like, don’t you have other goals that we kind of could use the money for these other things? So anyway, all that, that’s a long winded answer, but I’m curious about you too. Like, have you found New York to nurture your playful aspect and that side of you? Dude, so

Hamza Khan  1:12:27  

much, man, it’s somebody asked me how New York is recently. It was my boy, Chris, man, and I met him at the event that I was speaking at. He’s like, how is New York? And I’m like, Dude, it’s everything I want it to be, and more, I love it. I hate it. I have mixed feelings about it, but it’s just constantly challenging and pushing me. And I have fun here. Man, it is a playground. Bailey, and I often refer to it as a playground. We are truly liberated here. And that’s you use two words quite frequently over the last couple of minutes. You talked about uninhibited and you talked about free, and I think about those words a lot, right? Uninhibited? Another way to say that a synonym would be fearless. And when you look at the word free, F, R, E, E, it looks very similar to fear, right? And I would say that they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. You can visualize fear as a lack of freedom, or just the concern that comes from the potential loss of freedom, so on and so forth, especially when you get into the conservation of resources theory, which would make a really good episode down the road. So I think about who I was becoming when I was in Toronto, and I felt myself growing up too fast. I really did. There’s just a lot happening. So if I can, if I can, bring this into focus by sharing an anecdote. Here, I have a niece. She’s three years old right now, and to your point, All she knows is how to play. Everything is a game to her. She doesn’t have the language, doesn’t have the concept, doesn’t understand rules. She can’t even spell recession, you know, like, inflation doesn’t mean anything to her. Like, inflate a balloon. Like, what? Like, the world of adults is just so bizarre to her. And everyone gravitates around her, especially to see the way that my mom and my dad look at her. They become fools. They become playful idiots. Their playful aspect is a light because suddenly, the 5060, plus years of rules and stress and paying bills and taxes and, you know, notices from lawyers and creditors that all goes away when they’re with this person, when they’re with this three year old kid, they get to play basketball, roll around in the grass. They get to become animals. And, you know, get to, get to, get get, get to, you know, attend her basketball practices, so on and so forth. And even when she’s in basketball practice, they’re trying to enforce rules, and she’s a maverick. She’s doing her own thing. They’re like, get in line and shoot. She’s like, Nah, I’m gonna go over here and I see this, and I finally start to understand Donda a little bit more, what dondas philosophy was, which is, how do we keep this going? For as long as possible. From an academic perspective, in fact, there’s a book here. Since we have a truce, I can’t actually say what the book is, but it’s a parenting book by Donda. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is cool,

Herbert Lui  1:15:12  

cool. Highly. I think about that one too. Actually, there was also a grammar book. She’s like a so Donna West, is this great English professor? Yes, and yes she, she, ah, they like recently compiled a book with her lectures. I’ve been meaning to read that one. That’s so cool, though. Yeah,

Hamza Khan  1:15:33  

I was about to go into into a whole Donda thing right now. This is how playful it gets.

Herbert Lui  1:15:41  

That’s the thing. I mean, hold on. I’ll talk, I’ll talk about it after. But why don’t you No, go first.

Hamza Khan  1:15:46  

So um, in seeing the way my parents deal with her, they do this thing that Mom, if you listen to this, I love you, but like, there’s thing that my mom and my dad do with her that I I take issue with. They give her a lot of thought, terminating and limiting, words and concepts. Stop slow, don’t, you know. And I look at her climbing up the stairs, and I’m secretly like, you go. Keep going. Keep on climbing until you fall down. She’s jumping on the couch first my dad’s first innings. Like, No, don’t. Don’t jump on the couch, sit down, and I’m like, No, don’t. Don’t do this. Don’t. Don’t impose our world’s restrictions and limitations on this soul, because our status quo is then going to become her status quo. And I can tell you as an adult that is brushing up against the status quo all the time. It needs to end, because the status quo is not making most people happy, it’s not actually conducive to the utopia that we all seek, and that’s a big part of why I do the work that I do as a leadership researcher, as a speaker, as an entrepreneur, is because I’m trying to change the hearts of leaders, to reshape the status quo so that everybody can experience the freedom, the lack of inhibition that those who are on on the upswing of society can experience, and I get to experience that too, because I’m here in New York, and I’m here in New York in large part because of the work that I get to do, that I get to do with my partner, Bailey, and the amount of money that it requires for us to enjoy this life over here, and time that comes with it, and that introduces a level of freedom. So what does this have to do with with this kid? What does it have to do with New York? Let me, let me button it all together. And seeing the way that my parents are with my niece, I’m now able to fill in the blanks about, like, the period of my childhood that was formative, that I have no memory of, and I’m like, Ah, they were like this with me, my hyper vigilance, my anxieties, my imposter syndrome, so much of who I am is governed by a voice that was fear, driven, that came from scarcity, that came from parents worried about loss, and they with love, impressed their restrictions, constraints and limitations on me, and as I grew up, I started to find myself getting caught in those traps. It’s like, oh yeah, my reason to go to university, honestly, was because my dad didn’t like the answer. If I want to become a movie director, I wanted to go to OCAD. And I only chose OCAD and movie director because a guidance counselor told me that I had to. I didn’t want to. Man, like school is a thing that my mom told me to have to go to. I didn’t want I didn’t want to go to school. I was perfectly happy on the street that I was on with my dinky little get camera that recorded eight megabytes at a time, with my pack of Yu Gi Oh cards and my Razor scooter, that was my life, and I just wanted to stay in that moment. I truly think I was at my happiest when I was maybe 14 or 16, when it was just me and my boys playing all day, and it seemed like summer would never end. And that’s a feeling that I think people want to capture. I mean, it’s, it’s the stuff of songs, dude, right? Summer 69 when I look back now that summer seemed to last forever, what a powerful idea, man. And now I’m in a New York minute where it’s like, I’m here for literally 48 hours, and I have to get back on the road and do this work again. And just so we’re clear, I’m really grateful that I get to do this work. But, man, I want to play I want to hang out with my wife. I want to watch movies. I want to go to museums. I want to go to art galleries. I want to eat at, you know, at all kinds of establishments. I want to do fancy tasting menus. I want to do hole in the wall joints. I want to be silly. I want to start my day and not know how it’s going to end, and walk around New York and figure it out. So when I recognized that aspect in me, when I was in Toronto, where I started to feel all kinds of pressure, this is when a lot of mental health challenges started to bubble up for me, when I started to feel like, you know, my boundaries were slipping, and I started to feel not used necessarily, but like I didn’t have any control over my time in social life, because I’m such a people pleaser. I was like, something’s got to change here, because I know how this is going to end. I see this with all of my friends, all of my social circles. They’re currently in this track of like, get. Us, you know, get a secure job, buy a house, start a family, and then just the game, the game’s over, like, this is it for the rest of our lives. And I looked at that and I was like, I can’t do it. I’m not ready. I’m not I’m not ready to go to school again. Because I know, I know what happened the last time I made this decision, the last time I said, Yes, I want to go to school. I was disengaged. The last time I said, Yes, I’m going to take a job, I was, I don’t know, I experienced a monster manager. So I’m like, I know through three times is going to be a pattern. I’m like Bailey. When we come to New York the way you described in the 2010s it’s energizing. We have a lot of fun. Here. We are at our best. We are our best selves here. Let’s just move. Let’s just go there. We have no kids. We’re digital nomads. We own the means of our own. We’re entrepreneurs. We’re the CEOs of our company. So let’s just do it. And there’s no real game plan here. There’s no logic. So I promise I’m gonna wrap this up. I just covered a lot of

Herbert Lui  1:20:54  

ground. Take your time. Man, take your time. There’s no need to wrap it up. And so

Hamza Khan  1:20:58  

when buddy asked me, like, how is New York, I was like, I gotta be honest with you, man, like it’s probably the most illogical decision I’ve ever made. It is purely emotional, purely spontaneous. The desire to move to New York is animated by the playful aspect of me. Me being here is to you know what? I’m just gonna say it taking my inner child. I’m fighting for custody as I look down in my diamond encrusted piece like this is why I’m here, man, like I just friends family, the reason why I’m in New York, my confession to you is that I don’t want to grow up as fast as the rest of you are. Straight up. That’s why I’m wearing this mouse hat on a Saturday morning talking to my boy about art, creativity, and telling these long winded stories. Because, like,

Herbert Lui  1:21:46  

I love it.

Hamza Khan  1:21:47  

I just love that. You know, what’s cool? Listeners love it, man. As I’m saying this, I’m looking at a little, I’m looking at a little like Notepad over here that says School of the Holy Child. Whoa, crazy, right?

Herbert Lui  1:21:59  

That’s cool. Inner

Hamza Khan  1:22:00  

Child, sacred, blah, blah, blah, but yeah, man, I don’t know why I got fired up about that. I just felt like I there’s a lot of survivors remorse that comes with this. I don’t mean to get like, super dark and deep here, but like LeBron talks about this that you know, as you succeed and as you do something that’s very different from all of your friends and family, depending on your upbringing, you might feel something called survivor’s remorse, like you’re doing something wrong by having fun, by playing and succeeding in the way that you are. And I’m not saying my life is better than anybody else’s. I would even argue that, given some of the mental health challenges that I deal with regularly, I don’t get to enjoy and have as much fun as I want. But me being here is an attempt. It is a it is a striving to play. It is a striving to reward constantly the playful aspect. And the cool thing about my life now is that with the job and the access that I have, I get to do some pretty awesome shit for my inner child. For example, I was earlier this year. It was in the summer I spoke in North, like, a couple hours north of Toronto, and on the way back, I passed by Canada’s Wonderland and driving, check this out. Herbert, right? I’m driving back down, and I’m like, so I could go back home right now and work on that paper, but I have the entire afternoon off, should we? And then I had, like, a quick dialog with my inner child. Inner Child was like, Yo, let’s go. Yeah, solo Wonderland. Listen, Nana, dude,

Herbert Lui  1:23:24  

what did you what’s still there right now? What did are there classics still there? Like, is the wild beast still? I’m never, I went on wild piece once. I’m never going again, but, you know, always,

Hamza Khan  1:23:34  

all of it’s there. And I remember that one line from the New Jurassic Park reboot, where they’re like, the dinosaurs have to be bigger. Their teeth have to be longer. Their claws have to be bigger. Yo, the shit that you remember from a kid, they have taken that and given it steroids. Man, like, Whatever, whatever was happening in early UFC. They just like juice, these roller coasters, and they have become, man, like, I’m not even kidding. There’s one roller coaster that just goes up and it’s like a friggin 9090, foot drop, like a 90 degree angle drop there. That’s what roller coasters are right. Now, they just combined Superman, that’s I went there, and I was like, Yo, okay. You know, the cool thing about being an adult that is in touch with their playful aspect is the adult can hook shit up. So I’m like, Hey, adult, let’s let’s upgrade. Let’s get the Fast Pass. Let’s get the wristband. Let’s get the thing that lets you do all of the rides. Let’s get, man, I just had a blast over there. So much fun. Another thing that I do, right? It’s like, hey, one of the things I love doing as a kid was going to the theaters and watching movies. You know what I can do now? AMC stubs, member, let’s go all in, watch as many movies as I want. I can watch a movie, and then I can just go, you know, Have food and go back into the theater again. And, like, I don’t have any adults in my life telling me that I can’t do that otherwise. And I’m playing Xbox the other day, I’m like, you know, it would be great if my Xbox was faster. And you know, who can make that happen? Adult Hamza. We just go, and we just bought a faster Xbox, right? And then, wait,

Herbert Lui  1:24:59  

what’s it like? Like, you had an old Xbox, so you bought the new one, or, well, I

Hamza Khan  1:25:03  

had an, I had an old Xbox, and I was playing that, and I’m like, Yo, man, these loading screens are taking forever. And I’m like, and I wish I had, I wish I had a faster Xbox. And I’m like, you know how this used to go in the past? I used to ask my mom and my dad to help me. And I’m like, Yo, dude. I’m 32 years old. What? Bro?

Herbert Lui  1:25:23  

Your child’s like, Bro.

Hamza Khan  1:25:25  

My child was like, dog, right? And this happened recently, too. I was like, Yo Yo. I’m playing with this controller, and I’m like, Yo man, this controller is whack. I’m like, oh, you know what? I live in New York. There’s a Microsoft store that’s like, 50 minutes for me, let’s just go and buy a controller. It’s as seamless as that. And so long winded way of saying my strategy here, I think my initial question to you is like, how do you nurture and reward your inner child? Mine is very much the same way. It’s just like, you just have to do it. Recognize that it’s there. Recognize that playful aspect is there. Value it number one, and be intentional and like you, like you said earlier. It might be a little dry at first, or you didn’t use those words, but it might, it might seem a little clinical, but you eventually get the hang of it. Like in my calendar, are things that say, like, play video games. I have to put that in my calendar because, yeah, I have to make an appointment with myself and check in. And don’t. Don’t let that don’t let that light. Don’t let that inner child fade away. Really, don’t do do whatever you can. Doesn’t have to be as dramatic as moving to New York that was a desperate measure on my part. But find your own way to do that. Really, find your own way to stay connected with that inner child.

Herbert Lui  1:26:37  

I love that man. I love that I think you hit it on the nose, the first step is listening to it. And it’s its voice is so quiet and so timid now, because a lot of times, you know, this might be a little dramatic, but it’s like, a little beaten up, a little starved, you know, it’s been a little, it’s been the cage a little too long. You’re like, ah, go back there. And first of all, it’s like, let it out and listen. And be like, Yo, like, what’s this thing? So for me, I started I every day I meditate, and that sense of mindfulness has me a little more in tune the rest of the day. I don’t really feel much better after meditating. Be honest with you, I don’t maybe a little clearer on the good day on a bad day. I was like, that was not helpful at all. But I noticed through the rest of the day, I can hear things in my brain a little more clearly, and I’m more in tune with what’s around me a little bit more clearly, and it makes everything better. And so these things that you said of, oh, like, I want to do this. Hey, let’s go do that, right? I’m like, you know, oh, I’m like, I love these little things, man, you know, we talk about big things, little things, they don’t have to be big if you want to, let’s say you want to get out of the house. You just get out of the house. You might not be able to go all the way to New York or wherever it is, you know, but it’s like, you can just step out, you can go wander around and be like, I’m bored. I’m gonna go hang out, right? That’s what kids do. They go hang out. My friend Nick, he was, he was talking about also going to, you know, his his girlfriend really loves roller coasters. And he’s like, you know, we drove to an amusement park. It was like, two hours away. They’re about to leave. She’s like, let’s go. On one more. Let’s go. More. Let’s go on this crazy one. And he’s like, Ah, all right, fine, right? He’s getting on and he sees these kids at the front of the line, and he’s like, you know, putting his, like, wallet in his pocket and making sure it doesn’t fall out and stuff, and which is exactly what I would do. And he sees these kids, and they’re like, you know, they have glasses, they have their phones out. They like, could not care less, like, it’s not even in their operating like, the perspective of the world that this, that something bad is going to happen, or, like, even if it does, like, the consequences are whatever, right? And there is something very childish about that, but also very childlike. And for him, you know, he wrote this at his blog. It’s Nik dot art, great blog. And he also writes every day. And he was saying, like, Oh, that was so refreshing, right? Just to see that and to be around that and be like, hey, like, yeah, I can loosen up too. And that’s what he did. He loved the ride, the ride, the drive home wasn’t bad at all. And he was like, Oh, I was like, Oh, I was just worried about that for no reason. But that image of, like, wow, these kids really, like, they, they don’t give two whatevers about this thing, you know, it’s like, whatever. I’m just gonna enjoy this ride. And then whatever happens after, happens after, and somebody will take care of it. And for sure. You know, I want to, I think for me, it’s, it’s that’s, like, the extreme right. I’m not telling you to go be a kid, because that’s, that’s not possible, like, you can’t go back. That’s the sad part about growing up, is you can’t go back, no matter what you want to do. And I think the sooner you accept that, though, I’m a grown person now, but there is still I’m. Me though, right? Like, yes, I’m a grown person, but I’m still me, and there’s still this child like aspect and this playful aspect that you have, that you love, that maybe is hurting, maybe is too quiet, maybe it’s whatever, and maybe you don’t want to visit because there is a lot of pain there. But I’m telling you, the sooner you visit it, the sooner you get in touch with all of that and that playful aspect, that’s when these really interesting things start to get unblocked, like you really start to feel better about things. And if there is no time, it’s exactly what you said you put you put in your calendar. One little thing I like for me, you know, living here, but I think living anywhere, really, is you just show up to something like, 30 minutes early, and then you go hang out in that area and you see what’s happening there, you know, like, that is, like, a really great, oh, cool. There’s, like, a, there’s a really great place I can get an apple turnover. I love apple turnover, so I’m gonna go do that. You know, like, you can just do these things when you have the time. Or, you know, like, just go, go wait in line for something. Like kids. Kids do that too. Like, I was like, I don’t have time for a line. They don’t worry about that stuff. You know, you want to go to a 50 cent book signing. You go to the 50 cent book signing. So anyway, I went on a I think that is the thing that I would want a listener to take away. It’s like, just listen to it, and you’ll know. And if you if you can’t hear it yet, then just make a list of those things you know, like, things you like to do as a kid, or things that interest you now, and just go do them. It could be as simple as watching a movie by yourself. It’s cool. Go eat your favorite food. Go do whatever, because you know it’s like it’s feeding that side. And then once that playful aspect is more nurtured, then you’ll really hear it, because that voice will be a little bit louder, usually a little bit impulsive, usually a little spontaneous. And that’s what the point of growing up is, is to know when you can tap into that side and when you can That’s maturity.

Episode 2 summary:

In this episode of New Material, Herbert and Hamza dive deep into the murky waters of imposter syndrome and its potentially crushing effect on creative work. Hamza shares the raw reality of tackling a high-stakes textbook update project, facing a torrent of feedback that left him questioning his own skill. He reflects on the challenge of navigating criticism while holding onto his creative voice. Meanwhile, Herbert opens up about his own battles with editorial scrutiny and why staying true to your creative vision matters, even when external voices get loud. Together, they explore the push and pull of self-doubt, learning to separate your work from your worth, and embracing uncertainty as part of the creative journey. If you’ve ever wrestled with feelings of inadequacy or wanted a glimpse into the creative process’s messier side, this episode gives you an honest look at what it means to create with integrity and resilience.

Useful links:

• Hamza co-authored a textbook, Organisational Behaviour (10th Edition) (via LinkedIn)
• Ryan Leslie’s 2014 interview with The Combat Jack Show (RIP!)
• Picasso, the boilermaker, and expertise
• Why do anything? (via Herbert’s blog)
• Weirdly Brilliant by Jason Shen (via Herbert’s blog)

Transcript:

Editor’s note: This transcript was automatically generated by AI, and we have not edited below this sentence.

Herbert Lui  0:09  

Music. What’s new? Everyone you’re listening to an episode of the new material show. So let me intro myself real quick. My name is Herbert. I’m the author of a book called Creative doing and I’m a marketing advisor. So right now I’m doing that mostly with a company called Fgx, but I work with a lot of companies on their marketing, creative stuff, tech stuff, strategy stuff, that’s what I love. We’re talking about hip hop here all the time as well. That’s what we breathe. That’s me. Hamza. Who are you? For the very few people here who might not know who you are, love

Hamza Khan  1:08  

that fellow purveyor of the culture. I am an author of two books. I should add best selling author, because, you know, I have people in my in my life that tell me I’m I’m doing my community a disservice by not owning who I am. So I’m not just an author. Y’all a best selling author of two books, true burnout, gamble and leadership reinvented. I’m an educator. I teach in various forms. I used to teach at Toronto metropolitan university. I have since shifted my teaching exclusively to boardrooms, to conferences, to corporations, governments, associations, nonprofits, you name it, through the work that I do as an entrepreneur, co founder of skills camp, coming up on 10 years of doing our own thing, doing it our way. Shout out to Frank Sinatra, no. Shout out to Jay Z. I had a story about that, about how I’m dude. I’m starting to go bad on Jay. I’m starting to go back. But

Herbert Lui  2:02  

hold on, first I saw that. I saw the update on LinkedIn. It was a, you got that textbook now too, a recently published, yes, why don’t you, why don’t you tell us what’s new with that? Yes,

Hamza Khan  2:15  

yes, yes. So judge and Robbins, shout out to the OGS of organizational behavior, education in colleges and universities. They wrote a book called organizational behavior, very appropriately named, given the subject matter, and they are on their 10th edition for an international version. And I was asked by Yeah, man, and kudos to them. It’s been really surreal to watch from the inside and experience action, not even just watch, to actually be part of the process of updating a seminal book.

It almost makes me want to put together a team to update versions of the burnout gamble and leadership reinvented, and the wheels were already turning. But what it was like is I had a have a, I said a hat, a like, he’s still alive. He’s still alive and kicking. He’s doing phenomenally well. Shout out to James Hunt, dear friend and mentor of mine in Australia, who reached out to me and said, Hey, I have an opportunity from Pearson to update this book for a couple of key markets in the world. Would you be interested in joining? And I said, Absolutely, what’s what we got to do here? And he’s like, it’s pretty substantial overhaul. It’s the first time that they’re not only editing parts of the book, but they’re writing new chapters, and here are four chapters for you. One of them is on leadership, diversity, the other one is on resilience, burnout, so on and so forth. And I said, I’m in whatever you need. And I got an opportunity to collaborate with James and a team of international writers, authors, educators, people just like us. And it took an entire year to update this book, I got to experience what it’s like to be part of the machine that is Pearson and we publish this thing. And what was it like? What was it like? Man, I don’t think I’ve had this much criticism for my writing ever, ever. Man, like, Oh, my goodness, that’s what were they criticizing, though, like, it’s a textbook everything, man, that’s what I would have thought. At least there, there were, at times, honestly, where, I think, given the topic of conversation we’re having today, where I actually questioned several times whether I was even good enough for this project. I mean, dude, they were, they were criticizing my citation style. They were like, well, this is not up to APA 8.0

what you’ve done over here is part of the 6.0 and there was another point, man, where, like, they were, they were ripping apart, like, sentence structure. And I’m like, Man, this, this is actually flowing quite well. But they’re like, yeah, it’s not quite resonant. It’s not going to be resonant with the audience for this reason. And they would share a little guide. And man, it was, it was a bewildering process, to say the least, because I walked away from it almost disassociated. I was like, I really enjoyed the process of collaborating with James and everybody else, but I definitely walked away feeling less than as an author. I was like, I’m not as smart, I’m not as eloquent, I’m not as good of a writer as I think I am. Actually forgot about that project. I actually just, like, purged the memory a bit. So when the book actually came into my hands, there was a moment of like, oh yeah, this was a part of what I did that’s pretty damn cool. Like, all of that struggle, all of that criticism, all of the temporary pain that I felt manifested in this beautiful thing. So net positive, very happy with it. And thank you for asking,

Herbert Lui  5:20  

man, amazing. Man, that’s so cool to hear. It’s it was so cool to see that image of you with the textbook, and just to hear a sense of like, hey, what it was actually like to work on it is, it’s fascinating. It’s absolutely fascinating. I think that, like, the editorial process often can be like that, and it’s really relevant to our topic today, which is we want to talk about creative imposter syndrome. I mean, let’s dive in. I feel like the the topic came up when Hamza, you and I were on LinkedIn, I think it was on one of your posts, right? Somebody had commented, why don’t you unpack that story real quick, and then we can dive into the definitions and and what it might feel like and how to wrestle with it.

Hamza Khan  6:09  

Yeah, absolutely, man. And I did want to ask you, what’s new with you, but since we’re already, we already caught a flow here, let’s just get right into it. Okay, let’s go. Let’s go. I can’t remember what post is, what post it was, but I frequently talk about imposter syndrome. It’s something that I struggle with. Herbert, I know that you have also experienced it. I don’t know if you would identify somebody who struggles with it, necessarily. I’d be very curious to hear your perspective in a moment. But I mentioned imposter syndrome on a recent LinkedIn post, and I had one of my colleagues who I interact with quite frequently across the ether. We haven’t really talked much, but I feel like that’s a lot of my relationships. We don’t necessarily talk in person. Meet up in person, but there’s like, a nice frequency and consistency, I should say, a consistency of online interactions. And one of those people is a gentleman by the name of Amaya Jaya Kumar. I hope I’m pronouncing your name correctly, Amaya, but he left a very thoughtful comment on a recent post where he said, I’ve also struggled with imposter syndrome. Thank you for opening up and being vulnerable. And I responded, I felt like that was an opportunity for me to share how I truly feel about imposter syndrome and how my thinking has changed. My thinking over the last couple of years has been one of imposter syndrome being a response to an environment not necessarily designed for people with certain identities, but also what has been helpful for my imposter syndrome navigation journey has been reframing it as internalized self hate, which is quite heavy, and we can unpack that for sure, but I remember seeing that dialog and thinking to myself, Man as A creative as somebody engaged in the art of materialization of ideas and works. This might be very relevant. And so I tagged you, Herbert, with the side eye emoji, whatever that’s called, which is the notice this, look at this emoji. And I said, potential topic. And you very enthusiastically responded, yes. And so here we are.

Herbert Lui  8:01  

Here we are. And for, I mean, imposter syndrome is this thing, I think that a lot of people can find really relatable. I think that there’s, you know, let’s, let’s kind of like, sketch out what this really means, right? I think that there’s usually, when we talk about imposter syndrome, there’s this sense of self doubt, maybe even unworthiness, associated with this word. I think that it’s particularly the reason it’s a syndrome, and not just being an imposter, is because usually it affects people who probably don’t have a reason to feel that way on the outside right, they’re super high achieving, or already experienced some degree of success, and yet still the emotional experience, you know, you just feel fake, like I’m like, a poser, or I feel like I shouldn’t be here, or somehow I snuck in here and like I’m, like, tricking everyone. Somehow I just pretended my way in, and everyone fell for it, and now I’m here, and now I don’t know what I’m doing. I think that is the very raw feeling of what imposter syndrome feels like. Does that can you relate with that Hamza, like, how does that feel to you? Yeah,

Hamza Khan  9:13  

I did 100% and you captured it. You captured it beautifully. It’s very intuitive feeling, and I love that the alliteration of feel fake, like feeling fake is exactly what it is. I have often described imposter syndrome as like this visceral feeling of somebody holding on to you and pulling you and dragging you away. And I’ve often visualized my inner imposter as being like a sort of deformed,

you know, uglier version of Hamza. Like, it’s imagine, like, the Smeagol version of me.

Yeah, I’m not kidding. Like, and like, I actually go Gollum and I it actually is like a little goblin. It’s like a little demon. It’s a little gremlin that in key moments of creation, production, when I’m trying to be. My whole self, or best self, jumps on my back, scratches me, you know, pulls my leg and closes my mouth. It’s just a tormentor. It even has, you know, a similar voice to smeagler Gollum, which I’m not going to attempt to do on this pod, you know, unless you really want me to right.

Herbert Lui  10:19  

Shot for the listener, you put it up there.

Precious. How does it go?

Hamza Khan  10:34  

It goes like this. It’s like a bus selling waffle, but on Amazon, right? Amazon, best selling author is still a best selling author, bro,

Herbert Lui  10:44  

yo. That was good man. That was good lord of the rings when I can only do like a precious thing, you know. Anyway, that was really real, right? So that was a very strong image, though. Yeah, man, what your imposter syndrome looks and feels like to you 100%

Hamza Khan  11:07  

and it’s interesting that we were giving these very sort of like intuitive definitions here. Actually, in preparation for this episode, I looked up what the Oxford dictionary definition is of imposter syndrome, and check this out. I’d love to get your thoughts on this right, the persistent inability, so it’s not just occasional, it’s persistent inability to believe that one’s success so it has to do with achievement is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills. And so like, if we were to break that apart and look at its component parts, number one, we have imposter, so that’s a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gains. And then syndrome, I think, is really interesting, because it’s not just imposter experience or imposter feeling. Syndrome is a grouping of symptoms, so there’s multiple ways it can manifest, but the specific definition here is a group of symptoms which consistently occur together, or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms. So let me elaborate on your definition of feeling fake. It’s like always feeling fake, or consistently feeling fake in response or in regards to achievements that are clearly your own or are a result of your efforts. How does that sound to you? It

Herbert Lui  12:24  

almost feels like you didn’t do them. Is that what you’re saying or like you You aren’t like, it wasn’t just you almost like, that’s, that’s how it feels like it’s, oh, I somehow, like, fluked my way into it, yeah,

Hamza Khan  12:35  

for example. All right, I’m gonna give you a compliment in real time and tell me honestly how you feel about this. I’m going to say to you, creative doing is a masterful book. It is right up there with some of the greatest books on creativity and productivity, peak performance and just getting things done. It’s an incredible piece of work in real time. Tell me how you feel, dude,

Herbert Lui  13:01  

I loved it. Say more, say more, and I’ll say it feels really good. I’m gonna be that’s the purpose of this

Hamza Khan  13:18  

is really nice. This is good, but let me, let me, let me highlight something for you and the materialist, right? So it’s very clear that you have a healthy relationship with your work. I knew your achievement. You don’t actually, in this moment, struggle with imposter syndrome, not in this moment. And let’s talk about that, right? So in this moment, the way that you receive that compliment is powerful. People praise me similarly for my creative work. People say Hamza, that was an excellent keynote. For example, somebody dropped on LinkedIn that she said this keynote was something else like her mind was blown by it, wow. There was a version of Hamza not too long ago that would have been like, oh, you know what? I that you’re too kind. And it was really a team effort, and I had a designer like I would just deflect and pass on the praise because I didn’t feel worthy of it. But now what I say is similar to what you say. I say that is very powerful to receive. Thank you. I’m going to receive that in the spirit in which it was shared. That means a lot to me. It really does. And I also add these days I appreciate that I worked really hard on it, I put my soul into it, but that wasn’t always the case. And you said that that wasn’t always the case for you, so I’d actually love to hear from you a time when you experienced imposter syndrome, yeah,

Herbert Lui  14:35  

getting edited, I think, is a very frequent and common moment that wasn’t the experience when I was working on creative doing my editor, Rachel Jepsen, was just this great editing coach, great writing coach, and I was lucky enough to work with her for the book, and she was working at the publisher, Holloway at the time, and so she really took. I think Rachel’s approach to editing was very empowering and very nurturing, in a sense, so her, like, an editor’s job really is just to make the work better, right? It’s really just to make the work good. And some editors really just don’t have the bandwidth or the care to, like, really care how the writer feels, right, right? So, you know, Rachel did a really good job. I think her approach to editing just and her personality just makes it really difficult for her not to be like that. She’s just, she, you know, great editor. But I will say, I won’t name names, because, you know, there’s gonna be some smoke here, but I think that for me, I was working on with a team, and we all edited each other’s work really aggressively, right? And and so a this team had really high editorial standards. One of the best teams I’ve worked on. We made some great work together. I’ll be showing that work all the time. I’m gonna leave everyone guessing who it is, but, but the what I will say is, oh, my god, the editorial process to me, in my mind, first of all, was completely so messy all the time. Because, you know, the the flow is supposed to be very linear. It’s supposed to be, you know, draft, first round, second round, third round, and then, like a top line review, and then it’s out, right? That’s a lot. And we’re talking about just articles here. We’re not talking about books and stuff. And, you know, asterisks for the people listening to this who were on that team. Love them as people. Love you as people. Yeah, you’re great. Great people, some of the best editors and writers I worked with. But Jesus Christ, that process was horrible to me. It was so bad I would turn in drafts that a first of all, there was never enough time to do a good draft. So of course, it’s like, okay, this was in my best work because I didn’t have enough time to do it. Because we have meetings, we have this, we have that. We have all of these other things we need to do, asides from article production, okay? Then on top of that, there was so there wasn’t enough time for me to make a draft that I liked, but that’s supposed to be okay, because nobody really turns in a draft that they like, and the editor is supposed to really pull it up, right? It’s not really the writer’s job on that team. And then, like, sometimes I would be, I would submit a draft, and it would get stuck in a round so round one, we’re supposed to go to round two next, right? The editor will be like, No. And one particular always, constantly. Was like, No, this is not round two yet. You gotta go back. Fix it. Fix this. Fix this. Like, constantly. And then same of round two, same with round three. So it was like, Oh my gosh. I would do like several, like, seven rounds of edits for what was supposed to be a three round process, right? And, and actually, I would say sometimes it felt like these, like, there’s like, on a team, you work with each other on the day to day, and you’re all kind of, it’s like, it’s like a friendly competition, in a way, right? It’s like, hey, look, we, we have one promotion that we’re kind of going for here. We all have, like, performance review. And sometimes it felt like when, when I would say, when I was excelling at something, it felt like these edits were almost getting, like, weaponized against me, a little bit like it was like, Oh, I’m just gonna, like, completely tear this piece apart because I I’m, like, really up, I don’t know, right? Like, I’m not happy that he’s getting the spotlight on this or that. Now that’s a feeling that is a narrative. I don’t think it was actually what was happening, to be clear, but it felt like that to me. And so as a result of all this, I’m deviating, and I worry, as a result of all these, you know, these harsh edits, this constant confusion about where we were in the editorial process, and also, like, a lack of care about, hey, like I see where this piece can go, or, you know, a lack of affirmation that I got when working on creative doing I just felt like, oh my god, I’m like the worst writer on this team. I need to compensate for this with all of this non writing work, and that’s actually where my strength is. Whether that’s true or not, I’m not sure, but I will say I felt like the worst writer on the team, and it felt horrible working on that team. Well, this was writing.

Hamza Khan  19:21  

I wouldn’t say what you shared here is good. What you experienced was not good. And I appreciate your candor and for being vulnerable and for opening up about this process, which I think is much more commonplace given my research on leadership and the inability of leadership to create environments that are conducive to thriving and also create cultures that are more positive, something where everybody can win, so on and so forth. So just putting that aside, I just wanted to say quickly thank you for for sharing that, because it was healing for me as your as your co host on this pod, to hear that you actually reminded me that the experience of being with the Pearson team was a. Lot tougher than I might have admitted. In fact, I’m thinking about how I described that when you when you put me on the spot, and I think I glossed over a lot of things. I don’t think that I was comfortable talking about the Pearson experience, because I haven’t fully processed how painful it was. And I’m saying this with all due respect to James, to the Pearson team. Ultimately, like I said, it was net positive. I came out of that feeling good about the product, but I didn’t feel good about myself while I was going through it, for similar reasons. I was part of a team of elite writers and scholars. I mean, I’m talking about PhDs, you know, superstar MBA students and graduates. I’m talking about, you know, someone at the caliber of James Hunt, editors associated with a brand like Pearson. And here I was being like little old me, you know, I’ve just got an undergrad from the University of Toronto in English literature, you know, I got a 3.86 GPA. It’s not amazing. And that was in my last year. My CGPA is another story, dude. So, you know, I’m an Amazon Best Selling Author, just so we’re clear. You know, there’s frequent spelling, grammar and syntax errors in my newsletters. I realize that I have a very passive language style, and all of these things just made me consistently feel like I was holding the team back, that I was the weakest link, that I was not producing at the caliber of everybody else. And the scariest thing for me is that I was working in isolation, because this team was distributed. There was writers in Hong Kong, there was writers on the West Coast of the US. There was a writer in Australia. Here I was driving my time between New York and Toronto, and so the time zones were off. We could never actually meet. I could never actually talk to my fellow co writers. My only access point to the work was through the editorial team. And the editorial team, maybe for the sake of speed, they would provide these edits back, and they felt very terse. It was, first of all, always in red. So you know, if we’re thinking about creativity and we’re thinking about biologically, our hardwiring towards the color red, it’s fire, it’s blood, it’s warning, it’s danger. And so I would get slaughtered. I would open up this word doc, and it would just be a friggin, like, a like, a cascade of red, and I’m like, What did I do this time? Like, that’s how I felt. I felt like I was being punished every single time it was it, oh my gosh, I was being penalized. And I’m saying this, all this is say that what you just described right now is so commonplace in the editorial process, and I definitely had a tough time not taking it personally. I took I took the edits personally because I felt like I wasn’t good enough for Pearson standards, and maybe I’m not as good of a writer as I think I am, and that was tough for me. And I don’t think I fully incorporated the identity I think, I think I rejected the identity that they were not trying to heap on me, but I think my own insecurities allowed for that feedback to permeate through the work. It should have just been contained at the work. It should have just been about the writing for that project, but I allowed it to move from that project into my being and so long winded way of coming back to ask you this question, Herbert, when you went through that experience, did you incorporate the identity of I’m not as good of a writer as I think I am based on this group’s standards? Or have you relegated it to a figment of your imagination? I don’t know why I slowed down by saying figment. Sorry, I just a figment of your imagination.

Herbert Lui  23:48  

Well played, my friend. Well played. Let me think, I think, look, I studied business, right? So you, all of our exams are multiple choice. There’s, I mean, all of our evaluations were exams too. Like, there’s a handful of projects and stuff, but you’re not you get, like, a letter grade, I mean, sorry, like a number grade, and it’s very clear what you did, what right, what you did wrong. And I think in the editorial process, that isn’t always black and white, and it’s not really certain, like, you really need to have a clear vision of what you want to do, and if that editor shares that vision, then you’re both, like, heading in a good direction, but oftentimes, like, on, I mean, I’m not sure about you, but I’m on my team. Like It, it wasn’t the case that I had a clear vision of what to do, because the creative process is generative, which, you know, is worth unpacking in itself. Actually, I’ll quickly get into that right now. The way I work is I very much like I love doing something and then seeing where it goes. Yeah, I don’t think that’s actually very not every creative person works that way. But. Some people like having a vision and working backwards from that. But for me, my creative process is super generative. So even if I have an outline, even if I have whatever I do like making the thing and then just letting loose a little more and seeing how it unfolds now that that presents a problem, a because you’re not sure where the end goal is, which then makes you feel like it can make you feel, hey, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just I’m exploring, right and and I don’t think that part of the creative process is as clear or like, maybe people just don’t talk about the exploratory process as much, but then the editor can’t really help you, because they’re also like, Well, I’m just going to go default to what my version of what I would do, and I like, we’re two different, very different people, or you’re really five very different people, right? So that’s kind of and so with creative work, when you approach it like that, it’s very easy to feel a sense of doubt and a sense of confusion even early in the process, when you’re not sure what you’re doing, but you do. I think for me, what brings me a sense of confidence or peace is it’s going to go where it needs to go, and I’m very confident about that, and that statement has to always be on my mind. I think, when I’m when I’m working on something, and let me

Hamza Khan  26:22  

draw an interesting parallel here, based on what you said, Herbert, I like that a lot, I think, and I look forward to if potentially you disagree with this. I remember I brought it up in episode one, but there is a distinction to be made between art and design. Art is something you do for yourself. Design is something you do with others, if we’re just thinking about it graphically, but they’re both creative endeavors. Creativity is required to produce art, creativity is required to produce design. But what the distinction is, fundamentally, is the level of CO creativity required, collaboration required and audience. So using your example, and even thinking about, you know, our our writing processes, so it sounds like the team that you worked with and the team that I worked with, what we were ultimately doing was we were creating designs. We were working for another person, another system, an audience, and not necessarily ourselves. You were producing for an audience, for the company that you were working with at the time, I was writing for a student, undergraduate audience, and the criticism that I was receiving from my team kept on coming back to you know, this is good writing. It’s eloquent, it’s elaborate, but it’s too prosaic. You’re writing as though you’re writing a novel, but write for a textbook. Write for a second year business student, write for a fourth year business student, and I was struggling mostly. Most of the comments were around tone and language, style and voice. Technically, I was a very good writer. I was very competent. The sources that I could pull were good. Of course, my citation styles were a bit off, but that’s beyond the point I was, I was I was producing content that wasn’t initially meeting the mark. Now here’s the thing, if I were to write my own book on organizational behavior, and I am the producer, I am I am the person bankrolling it, I am the author, I have final say. Best believe it’s going to be written very differently than a textbook that is going to be an art project, essentially, because I’m writing it for myself. And the parallel that I want to draw here is I recently watched megalopolis. Francis Ford Coppola.

Herbert Lui  28:33  

Francis Ford Coppola,

Hamza Khan  28:35  

thank you. Thank you. I let it off and I’m like, missed opportunity. Missed opportunity. Oh boy, when these Patreon episodes get released, just give me a heads up, because my political my political ambitions end around that same time. Okay, so speaking of Mr. Foreign car, Coppola Francis megalopolis is a movie he’s been wanting to make since 1977 All right, wow. And so this is his magnum opus. This has been this idea has been in his heart. It’s been moving through across the Sands of Time, and it finally manifested. I watched this movie. Oh my god, I cannot stop thinking about this movie. In fact, I’m gonna go watch it again today. I’m actually coming to your neck of the woods. I’m coming down to the Alamo Drafthouse tonight. 605. Film. Yeah,

Herbert Lui  29:24  

dude. Whoa, interesting. Interesting. I

Hamza Khan  29:28  

say this to say this movie is getting demolished by the critics. I mean, he is getting tarred and feathered, lambasted, pilloried, you name it, because people are like, it’s too long, it’s too convoluted, it’s too messy, blah, blah, blah other people’s standards, because they are now measuring this movie against the formula that Hollywood has been churning out. They’re measuring megalopolis against whatever, whatever stinker Marvel dropped recently, right all left in Marvel. But like or. Sony like they’re measuring against Madame Webb and Craven the hunter, like they want this movie to fit in a box. But Francis has come out swinging, and he’s like, bro, I made the movie that’s in my heart, like one you can say whatever you want about muggle, plus one thing you cannot say about it is there’s not a sincere effort. There’s not hard in it, and that is why it stands out to me. It is a movie that is such a unique experience. I don’t think anybody has ever experienced. Ever experienced anything like megalopolis in theaters. And keep in mind, though, and the thing I have to remind people is, this is the same guy that gave us Godfather one, Godfather two, Dracula apocalypse. Now, do you think he doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing? So that was my feeling when I was writing this, when I was on the Pearson project. I was like, I was getting slapped down on some shit. And I’m like, I was about to unnecessarily just like, let off a string for sure. Well,

Herbert Lui  30:48  

well, you know, I know exactly how you feel. Like,

Hamza Khan  30:54  

do you? Do you not know who the fuck I am?

Herbert Lui  30:59  

Let him cook, man. Let him go.

Hamza Khan  31:00  

My mom is a con bro like, why don’t you take some editorial advice from me, son? Oh, my gosh. I know you felt that way too. I know you felt that way when you were working on this project like so much. You must not know who I am, like you, I probably have more newsletter subscribers than all you is combined, bro. Oh, 100% Sorry.

Herbert Lui  31:23  

Let you finish it.

Hamza Khan  31:25  

If I cook anymore, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be over overcooked. So, oh,

Herbert Lui  31:30  

man, that was beautiful. That the whole thing just now that might be, we might need to, like, that’s a highlight, right there. Okay, to I’ll go traverse chronological. So what you said, first of all, can totally understand. But there’s a I’ll say this too, and

it was definitely a me thing. It was not a them thing. It was a me thing. And I take full responsibility and accountability for that meaning, like it was very clear to me that, yes, the style and the taste. Here’s the thing, everyone else on the team read the same stuff. Probably came from a similar working background. Ish, right? Like, you know, studied, studied writing in college and stuff, sure. And had, you know, very, you know, to be very fair. Also had much more pure like writing editorial experience than I did, and so there’s no way I could fairly look at them and be like, Okay, you guys don’t know what you’re talking about, because you do right? Like, it’s all the facts are there. And so to me, I’m like, well, then it’s a me thing, like, for sure. And it was very difficult for me to reconcile the emotion I you know what you said? Do you know who I am? The Have you watched that Nicolas Cage movie? Oh, the unbearable weight of Yes, of massive talent, yes, exactly, exactly. There’s a moment in it where his character is like, like, the alter ego is like, I’m Nicholas.

That’s how I love that movie. First of all, I like way more than I probably should have. Like, I don’t think it was one of those you’re supposed to like this movie kind of thing, but I loved it so, so I knew it was me. That’s the first point that I want to make. And I think this the second point was, then it became confusing, because it was like, Wait, but they do know what they’re doing. And I think the story I had to feed more and more was like, Look, you’re good, they just happen to be also really good, if not better. So this is an opportunity now to get better as a writer, right? You want to pick the stories that are good for you. You want to pick you want to accept suggestions with open mindedness and also like, not assume like a malicious intention, even though, look, I felt hurt all the time, way more hurt than I should have, sure, and that is a sign, again, going back to what I was saying earlier, I didn’t have the muscle and the practice of taking creative feedback. So my my wife, Bernice, bless her, she studied at OCAD U right? She studied design, but she’s also a professional artist, so she knows what it’s like to do design critiques, to have your work chopped up completely in school. She’s like, you know, she’s gone through this since, since, like, over a decade ago. So she’s, you know, and I would obviously talk to her about this stuff, and she she also made it clear it’s like, well, like, maybe, you know, you need some more practice taking feedback from people. And I was like, I think that’s exactly it. And so the process of learning to take the feedback and like split up my self worth from my work was incredibly, incredibly like that is what that was a process and journey of Now that being said, I still hated it, as I want to emphasize. Is, first of all, the reconciliation of these emotions and feeling hurt does not mean those people were trying to hurt me. I think they were all really great people. I think they were all trying to do their job, and the company and the culture really forced all of us to be really stressed all the time, really anxious all the time, and really stretched and pushed us to our limits, and so it’s not a great creative space to work from. And I really genuinely believe this when I say, if I worked with the same team at a different company, we’d be a much better team, much more harmonious, and I think the work would be better for it as well. I agree, and I really do appreciate all the things I learned from them, you know, when we’re not editing together, like happiness, you know, like, can get along really well all this stuff. So, yeah, all that’s just to say that I still feel like I’m still integrating and, like, still wrapping all that together. But that was the that was what I learned about myself, and that was, like an area that I was like, Okay, I need to either accept this as part of the job, or I need to go find, like, a different project to work on.

Hamza Khan  36:13  

You touched on something super important here, right? I absolutely feel that, like I everything that I’m saying here, I hope it’s not coming across as like, I’m bashing Pearson, that is, couldn’t be further from the truth. And you’re not bashing this organization that you read the truth. I mean, we’ve been very upfront in saying that this is how we’re internally processing and experiencing this in our very empathetic Virgo ways, right? You’re a Virgo. Oh, yeah, we talked about this, right? Yeah. At some point we’re gonna have to just like, Bring, bring on a therapist as, like, a third,

Herbert Lui  36:48  

for sure, bro.

Hamza Khan  36:50  

Like to quote one of my favorite lines from this obscure, I suppose, but not obscure for millennial men, I guess, the Street Fighter movie with Raul Julia. You know, the day that bison graced your town was the greatest day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday, right?

Herbert Lui  37:11  

That’s new. That’s new to me. Man, that’s cool,

Hamza Khan  37:14  

though that’s a crazy line, like M Bison is just basically being like, yeah, yeah, it was the thing that was so impactful for you. For me, was just such a casual afterthought, just another day. And I think that from my editor’s perspective, them providing this cascade of scathing critiques was just them doing their job to your point. Because the thing that separates, you know, my books from being the Amazon bestseller to being this book, Pearson, that is in hundreds of 1000s of schools, millions, 10s of millions of copies being sold, is that Pearson has a very high editorial standard. They have, they have investors that they have to, you know, meet their expectations. It has to be it has to meet the standards of educational institutions across the world. It has to be able to be used by elite scholars, so on and so forth and so like I think that I came out of this process, even though my ego took a hit. It goes back to this idea of iron sharpening iron. I was part of a crucible. I was part of this team where there was a lot of intensity, a lot of pressure, a lot of pain at times. But I think I came out better as a writer for it. I came out better as an entrepreneur, as somebody who has books that are deserving of being updated. I came out of this experience reeling, but ultimately I feel, I feel more competent because I went through it. And you know, this reminds me, I was listening to a podcast once. I can’t remember which basketball player it was, but he was a bench player, and he was getting chirped by the hosts. I really have to find this one. And they’re like, yeah, man, you know, how does it feel like being a bench player? You rarely come off the bench, so on and so forth. And he’s like, just, just so we’re clear. I think it was, I think was at Toronto, Raptors anyway. Sorry, I’m losing, I’m losing the point here. But he said, Just so we’re clear. I’m a bench player in the NBA, but you can drop me onto any basketball court in the world, and I’m smoking people.

Herbert Lui  39:08  

Dude, for real.

Hamza Khan  39:09  

Man, what I mean? That’s how I feel. It’s like, sure, I got my ass handed to me as part of this editorial process at Pearson, but best believe you drop me into any other writing room in the world, and I’m I’m definitely not in the bottom half like I, you know, right? If you know, you know 100% so 100% of this 100% much better as a writer for having gone through this process, because you got to experience that crucible and the pressure that came from it, and you were able to hold your own for as long as you did while you were there. Not only did you hold your own, you actually produced. You actually created material that has gone out into the world that has your name on it, like nobody can take that away. And maybe from this process, you incorporate the very best, and you respectfully disagree with and compartmentalize or dispense with the things that aren’t serving you because the. Last thing you want to do here, dude, is edit yourself to the point where there’s nothing left. Because if you make your identity now tied up with this experience, and you start telling yourself, like, I love that you said, what you tell yourself, if you tell yourself, I’m not good enough. I, you know, my the way I I sort of like, let’s just pick like, something that I think is characteristic of your writing. Like, of your writing. The place in my writing in which I interject the insight that I’m going to respond to happens too late, based on what this one editor said, then suddenly your content doesn’t feel like it’s coming from you anymore. It loses the signature touch that people have come to love and appreciate. So this one editor’s or editorial team’s feedback, it doesn’t define your work, and you can respectfully disagree with it

Herbert Lui  40:51  

in the same way that Francis Ford and karkapola is disagreeing with all of the critics right now, right? He’s saying, He’s saying, I hear you. You’re You’re entitled to your opinion, but in order for this work to be authentically mine, I respectfully disagree I afford you grace go on your way most of the time when you just go for it doesn’t turn out to be a banger. It turns out to be something like this, which I think he’s spent, like a lot, you know, his own he spent his own budget on this so that he could have complete creative control exactly, and he’s just gonna put it out there. And I don’t think it feels great for him to get panned, but I also think, you know what, at the end of the day, if you’re an artist, I if you’re an artist, you need to say what you want to say. And you know, when you’re working a job, that might not be the best possible way for you to do that right? You’re saying what the business needs you to say, or the team needs you to say, or whatever it is. But when you’re an artist, the most important thing is to be able to communicate what you want to communicate, and to do things the way you want to do it, to your standard, to your expression, and nothing else really matters that much. That’s a definition of an artist that I’m cribbing from. This recording artist. He’s, you know, does a lot of other things, entrepreneur, Ryan Leslie. If you listen to the combat Jack interview from 2014 first of all, I’m a huge Ryan Leslie fan, so I’m really quoting an archive. But he, he says this thing, which is wild to me.

So for people who aren’t sure, because Ryan is not, he’s, you know, he’s not a I would say that on that podcast, he even said this himself. He’s like, I have had zero commercial success, which was like mind blowing to me. I’m like, Whoa, that that’s like, a hard thing to say to yourself, first of all, but second of all, like, someone who’s working at that caliber, Ryan Leslie, best known, probably for making cassie’s Me and you, you know, very well known for many other hits you be killing them by fab. There’s like Fly, fly together. You know, there’s a lot of hits that he’s worked on for other people. And then he’s also had his own moment, right? He got nominated for a Grammy. He made a couple of hits, like mainstream hits in Oh, nine maybe. But he’s assessed his career as not having any commercial success, which I don’t think is entirely true, but yes, okay, the numbers are not like he’s worked on hits that’s made so many more numbers, and he’s been around much more popular artists with more commercial success. So he’s like, okay, cool, my success hasn’t lived up to that. But also, like later in the interview, or maybe earlier, I’m not sure, but he’s like, that’s what he says. He’s like, look, as long as you’re an artist, when you’re an artist, you don’t care about the commercial success. That really shouldn’t matter as much. What matters is, are you saying what you want to say? Are you doing the things you want to do? Does your music sound like what you want it to sound like? And I think that that’s really the key to being an artist, and that is really difficult to uphold because you’re trying to pay the bills with your art, or you’re trying to gain increase your status and your prestige with your art, or you’re trying to get a, you know, good performance review with your art, that’s that’s going to be very that emphasis and need for the external results makes it really difficult for you to let go and let loose and be open to taking in feedback. It makes it very difficult for you to be vulnerable with the work and with seeing how you really feel and with expressing it. I’m going to be honest with you, even though I write every day at my blog, herbertlui.net, my last name is lui. So even though I write every day at my blog, there’s still and that is a daily practice in not hiding, in not creating opacity. Right by default, we have opacity because we’re not live streaming all the time. That sounds super hectic. Yeah, so that is a daily breakdown of a wall and but even then, I still feel like I’ve only started to chip away at that and this at. Episode, really, we’re getting kind of meta here now, but this episode really has left me feeling, whoa. Like, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t talk about at my blog. A, because I don’t know if that’s a place for it, but also, B, like, I just didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I didn’t also didn’t want to, like, I wanted to maintain professionalism, of course, when we’re working there, but, you know, I plan to keep a relationship with these people after because they again, like, were super supportive in their own ways when we worked there together, and they really, like, I don’t actually think they they were trying to be hurtful or anything, and they’re all really good at what they do. I do respect them and admire them

Hamza Khan  45:42  

a lot. Let me offer you this tell the story more, because it is not their story, it is your story. You worked with them, and I know you want to protect their identities, and you can be artful about doing that. You absolutely can. But the experience of going through that is something that I think is powerful, and I think it’s unveiling itself right now in this episode right we’re talking openly about what it’s like to be us, and if you’re familiar with Herbert and myself, maybe you’ve come to learn about us or even appreciate and subscribe to our output, which is usually quite polished. And so through this recording, through this experience of putting together new material, you’re watching essentially behind the scenes, like we’re lifting, we’re lifting the hood here, and giving you access to the messy, convoluted, you know, very Virgo doubting, yeah. I mean, this episode two is called imposter syndrome. Like, how much more raw Do you want to get here? Right? It’s we’re openly acknowledging that this is how we feel. But I like the Ryan Leslie idea. I want to just come back to that he’s having a moment right now, like he was on drink champs. And I wanted

Herbert Lui  46:52  

to ask you, if you watched that, oh my god, loved it. Loved it.

Hamza Khan  46:55  

I haven’t gone all in. But what’s really cool is that we’re seeing the zeitgeist change. The times are changing, and I think that, like, the public going bad on Drake is part of this reaction to the hollowness of commercial success. They’re looking at somebody like Drake who’s had, you know, he his his volley right now is like, yeah, you know, Kendrick won this, but like, I’m still the most streamed artist, blah, blah, blah, and like, the generation has just moved on. They’re like, we don’t actually care about this shit. These are vanity metrics. Nobody. Metrics. Nobody actually equates this with, with tangible, lasting success. I wish I could bend Drake’s here and be like, Yo, man, I got a strategy for you, bro. Like,

Herbert Lui  47:30  

just what’s the strategy?

Hamza Khan  47:32  

The strategy is RnB shift. Like, just, actually, just go back into RnB like you. I remember in the CBC interview, you said this is what you wanted to do. You wanted to finish your career like Marvin Gaye, now is the time to start that transition. People will love you for it. I have met Drake fans in 2024 who are unaware of the beef. And I’m like, that’s perfect, right? Serious, because their access to Drake is not the wraps they like. Just hold on, we’re going home, right? Like, God’s plan. I don’t, I know dude, and so I’m like, you have this whole other world you can tap into. But the point I wanted to make is that the zeitgeist is changing, and someone like Drake is now starting to feel anachronistic. But what happens when the zeitgeist changes and now people want, you know, true artistry. They want, you know, songwriting prowess. They want entrepreneurial flair, someone like a Ryan Leslie, who has stayed true to his craft, is now starting to appreciate with time, and he’s like, started stepping into a second career by being a purist. And I imagine that there are many artists right now who would say that Ryan Leslie is their favorite artist. He is, like your favorite artist, he is the secret ghost writer. Or maybe not. Maybe he’s even credited as powering the work of other people, and he revels in that. No doubt, you know, he said, I don’t have any commercial hits to your point, but I’m staying true to who I am. And what’s really interesting about all the criticism being heaped on France’s foreign karkapoli right now is that it’s coming from Joe in Minnesota, right? I’m not saying like Minnesota or Joe their their perspective is any less valid, but France is not thinking about them like Joe from Minnesota is not in his purview at all. It’s coming from, you know, 1000s of IMDb users and Rotten Tomato audience scores. That doesn’t matter to him, but what matters to him is what his peers say, because he is creating in that crucible, and you know what his peers are saying? Spike Lee loves it. Spike Jones loves it. Guillermo del Toro can’t stop thinking about it. Steven Soderbergh said it’s one of the most important films ever made on American soil. Like Francis is hearing that music.

Herbert Lui  49:40  

Check this out. Man, you really sold it for me. Man, you really sold me a megalopolis. I got to check this thing out,

Hamza Khan  49:46  

but I’ll tell you why, right. So shout out to my barber. JJ, right, my boy, this guy, he wrote, he sent me a post on Reddit. He’s like, bro, what is this movie? Why is it getting trashed? I’m like. JJ, like, just, I don’t think the movie’s for you, bro, dude, do not go into this because you went into civil war. Or by Alex Garland thinking it was going to be like a shoot ’em up. But what you really got was, like a very introspective look at, like the role that journalism plays in the transition of power. And like, he was disappointed. I’m like, bro, you are not ready for megalopolis, because this thing opens with like a Roman scroll, like, and this the Wow. In my opinion, this movie should not have gone to theaters, but I’m so glad that it did, and it was in IMAX for one week, but because there was nobody watching it, they pulled it, and I was one of the six people, dude. I was one of six people at Scotiabank theater in Toronto watching megalopolis on IMAX. It was fantastic. Anyways, I’m hyping this up too much. Wow. Let’s come back to it and let’s see if we can, like, put a bow on it and move into the next segment, which is, did Francis Coppola feel imposter syndrome when putting together megalopolis? Probably not, if I had to guess, probably not, because he was creating art. However, let’s say Marvel hired Francis Coppola to make the Eternals too of course, he’s going to feel imposter syndrome, because he is going to get battered down by the Marvel machine time and again, being like, no, don’t do this. The formula needs this. This character needs that. It was going to be too many creative voices, too many cooks in the kitchen. I think knowing Francis and the auteur that he is, he would have distanced himself from the process being like I put something out there into the world. It met Marvel’s expectations. It didn’t meet my expectations. And I think that he would have similar feelings to you and I coming off our respective editorial processes. But given his auteur status, he would have incorporated that very quickly and said, I took the very best these were the best lessons I learned, and I got rid of the rest. Case in point, when we worked with Sasha van Hoven at 90 9u i subjected myself to her editorial process because I knew it was coming from a good place. Not only was she looking after 99 you, she was also trying to help me as a burgeoning author, and I allowed myself to be critiqued by her. In fact, I sought it out, and she gave me very valuable critique. She took the time to explain in detail why she was recommending the changes that she did, and I willingly encountered criticism, and I became a better writer for it. And then I got to decide when I wanted that criticism to stop affecting my identity. And that happened specifically when somebody else entered the equation. I think it was a guy named Sean. Sean. I can’t remember his last name, but he became Sasha’s boss at one point, and then this guy started critiquing my writing. And I’m like, I see what you’re saying. I’m not gonna accept it like it’s it doesn’t feel authentic to me. So that was the moment where we decided to just go in different directions. Because I’m like, I like the way I’m writing right now. It’s resonating with me. It’s resonating with my audience. Sasha likes it. There’s good energy here, but this new guy is entering the mix right now, offering critiques that I don’t think are valid, and that’s okay. Your your perspective is valid. Mr. Sean, so is mine, and we can choose not to work together here. So that was the moment where I decided to, you know, split off. I’m like, am I going to continue producing design that I don’t believe in? Or from here on out, do I start to own my own voice, which has stayed with me for the last nearly 15 years, since we started working on

Herbert Lui  53:15  

that I love that, man. This is the episode

Hamza Khan  53:16  

of monologs. They were just going off. I love that.

Herbert Lui  53:19  

I mean, I love that this was a, this was a special one man. I think I’m really glad that I didn’t imagine the topic going here in this way. But I guess that’s the process of new material really. Hamza, if someone is wrestling with creative imposter syndrome right now, let’s you know, it could be at work. It could be maybe even when they’re starting their own thing, and they’re like, I have no idea what I’m doing. Like, I probably shouldn’t even be doing this. This is so silly. Maybe they didn’t even study like you. You said you did an undergrad in English, lit, is that? Right? Yeah, they that’s an art degree. Like, they might not even have a degree in art, right? They might have studied business like me, or science or something. What? What advice would you have for someone like that, or what statements or maybe prompts would you suggest to them to consider as they’re working through this very torturous process of doubting yourself and experiencing that?

Hamza Khan  54:18  

Oh, what a question, man. That is a that was a that was a powerful question. If you could win any award for that question, I would say it would be the I got a lot of cheese award, right?

I was not gonna, I was not gonna miss the opportunity. And I mean, like, cheese in both ways, like it was, like a such a feel good question. I’m so glad you asked that. Man, that’s like a, yeah. It makes me so happy. Um, wow. I’m having a moment here, because. Uh, this is kind of the answer that I wish I heard when I was going through my imposter syndrome early in my career, which was amazing. It’s not your voice, man. Like the voice that you’re hearing that is critiquing your work or your potential work is actually not your voice. You have internalized the environment. You have allowed somebody else’s perspective to permeate your being, for better or for worse, and often, I would say for worse, especially if the imposter syndrome is preventing partial or complete materialization. Let me explain a little bit more. Wow, how imposter syndrome manifests in me in 2024 is it prevents me from actually hitting publish. It prevents me from hitting send. It prevents me from writing. It prevents me from standing up and speaking with my chest. That’s when it’s unhealthy, because I should be showing up more. I should be like you. Herbert, publishing every single day, but I have a hard time showing up because I’m always doubting my abilities. I’m always doubting my ability to write, my ability to be consistent, my ability to do this, this and that. And until very recently, until actually this past week, I’ve had a voice undercutting all of my output, all of my potential output. And that voice was not my own. That voice belongs to a monster manager that I had 10 years ago, around the time that we met. And this monster manager micromanaged me, micromanaged me to the extent where he would actually print out my emails and, like, circle things and being like, Yeah, dude, it was, it was, it was a guy that’s terrifying, I know, and so that experience stays with you, especially when you idolize this person, and you hand over as much power as you do. The way I handed over power to Sasha, thank God. God, bless her. She used that power for my benefit. She actually took that held that held me and made me better when I gave power to this person, this monster manager. He abused it. He made it about himself, and it wasn’t about my benefit. He was just actually trying to get rid of me. In hindsight, he was trying to fire me and trying to make my life miserable. But the point is that stayed with me, and so my advice would be this number one, if you are experiencing imposter syndrome, do an inventory and interrogate whether that voice is your own or it belongs to somebody else. If I had to wager, it probably belongs to somebody else, it probably it’s probably associated with a time or times where you have been made to feel smaller. So really take the time to dig deep and the way that Herbert and I have unpacked in this episode, have a dialog with yourself. Have a dialog with your with your with your friend, have a dialog with your partner, and really, you know, maybe even with a therapist. Try to reverse engineer where this voice is coming from. For me, I’ve learned that this voice is coming from that monster manager, Herbert. I’m not sure we haven’t gone as deep in this. And if we have some time, I’d love to hear sort of like how that voice sounds in your head, in your heart. Do that number one, create an index of where that voice is coming from. Know where that is. Visualize your imposter, and then tell your imposter, I need you out of the way like you might not. Get rid of it completely. Smeagol is still there, but instead of being on my back, instead of holding on to me, I use some, you know, elvish ropes that I tie Smeagol to a tree, and I’m like, Dude, I need to do a keynote for 45 minutes. Can you just chill over there so I can go up here and be myself? Right? It’s like, Smeagol, you can come back after and you can, like, tear apart my work in my private moments, but not when I need to go and show up. So don’t let your inner imposter get in the way of you materializing fully or even partially, the things that are in your heart, design or art.

Herbert Lui  58:45  

I love that man. I love all of that. What you were saying about that dialog and being able to bring every part of yourself together, to work with, to work in harmony. Basically, there’s something really powerful about that. It reminds me of, like, the inside out kind of console, and all the emotions, yeah, all the emotions are working together to achieve one goal, right? Like, that’s like the that’s the dream. And I think that a lot of times for me, at least, it feels like my default emotion, like just just like, kind of like takes over and like does its thing. And I think that it’s very important to be able to stay calm, like, step back and assess, as you said, Hey, who’s Whose voice is this and whatnot. I think for me, the you asked about the voice, the voice really comes out in a very angry way. I think

Hamza Khan  59:53  

I alluded to that before, like, like, anger seems to be one of your your like, the voices that is part of that cons. All,

Herbert Lui  1:00:00  

yes, like anger for a good while before therapy, I started therapy January of 23 right on and and before that, anger was like the dominant, like core emotion of my life, and I didn’t even realize it. So I’ll say, for example, like it would feel like I just lose control of things, or like I would like say things that were very out of character for me, sure, people who knew me well, like, Well, no, oh, he kind of gets like this or whatever. But that’s not like a that’s just not like a good way to behave. It’s not a good way to be around people and like more like, just as importantly, it was also really difficult for me to be like that. It was like, very painful. And so that’s where the, you know, whole other topic for another day. But that’s what the imposter syndrome often sounds like for me. And the anger is probably a mask for the you know, the anger serves as a fuel. Right? Anger is energy, and so it fuels. It served as a fuel to get through imposter syndrome, to get through doubt, to get through whatever, to get even, to get through like, all of the hurt from from external feedback. It because at the end of the day, I’m still shipping work, and I’m still getting this stuff done, but the anger can only go take me so far. It’s like, cool. It got me here. It’s not going to get me to where I want to go. And it was actually a very corrosive and destructive thing, if it, if it’s like the master, you know, like, I think at the end of the day, you as a person, need to be the master of of what you want your emotions to do and when to call upon certain ones, and also when to be like, okay, hold on. Like, you don’t you know, I’m gonna need you to sit navigation or, like, even in the back, because I’m driving this thing. And I think at the end of it, that’s kind of the same with imposter syndrome, right? Look, doing creative work is going to involve all of the things that you and I just talked about, all of the like, in some way, questioning self worth, even if you have complete. Everyone respects you. Yes, men are around you, all that stuff you’re still gonna think about and be like, man. Like, is this really any good? Or like, no, is everyone just saying it because they stand to make some money off this thing or whatever? Right? Like, you’re gonna experience these thoughts. And I think for me, what I realized was the emotion of doubt is actually there to make the work better, because if you don’t doubt yourself, then you’re not going to think twice about is this the best piece of work I can do? And is this can, how can I make it better? And by the way, there’s always a way to make it better. Yes, the doubt is actually much. It’s much more bearable to deal with. I don’t think I have as much of a competitive or adversarial relationship with it. Yep, I think I very much try to, I don’t know, maybe I’ve been reading a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh lately, but just embrace, embrace the suffering you know, embrace the doubt, embrace the not knowing, embrace the boredom, feeling like you plateaued, embrace all of it. Because that’s what comes with creative work, especially if you want to go pro and I mean, even if you want to do it as a hobby, it still comes with your creative work, and that’s usually a sign you’re heading in the right direction, unfortunately. So it means, like, the painful process of working through the doubt and be like, oh wow. Like, I really did make this thing a lot better. And it was like, complete hell. And and so the the question is, can you do all of those things? Can you take feedback? Can you experience the doubt and sit with it? Can you work hard to make it better and sit with the uncertainty of, I don’t know where this is going to go? Can you do all of that in a way that isn’t hellish and with people and in an environment that also isn’t well, that is a good fit for you, right? That isn’t a bad fit for you, right? The people, maybe they’re they know how to work with you. They know when to push, when to pull, right? And it’s very different, by the way, when, when you’re hiring a coach to do that, versus like that person is your boss, because your boss has their own pressures and their own things to deal with as well, right? Whereas a coach is like, look, my job is to help you get this thing out there in as you a way as possible, right? A boss is just like, Look, I need you to help me do my job, you know, like, that’s that’s like, so there are different ways of approaching that, and do not expect your boss to treat you the way a coach would, if they do great, that’s amazing, but I don’t think that’s a fair expectation for me to compare working with Rachel, with maybe my boss or my team, because, you know, Rachel was helping me try to find my voice and be me for creative doing, whereas the team was really we’re all working for the client, voice the. Company voice, and so that’s a very different objective. Anyway, all of that’s just to say imposter syndrome is a very it’s a label we use to name something that I don’t think is actually that unusual. And so I would say that it’s a it. I would be surprised if Francis Ford car Coppola did not experience imposter syndrome, and I think that, on the contrary, he probably experienced a lot and was like, I, you know, never tackled the project the size before, like, so on and so forth and stuff like that, you know,

Hamza Khan  1:05:36  

yeah, you know, dude, you’re actually, you’re making me rethink, Mr. Mr. France, Mrs. Mr. Foreign car Coppola, right? I think that the fact that this movie is was conceived in 1977 but not made until 2024 actually indicates to me that there was tremendous for sure, imposter syndrome probably like, wow, I’m gonna watch it very differently tonight. No, but it’s possible that he just felt like, I’m not ready for it yet, and he just kept on getting to the point of, like, point of like it exists as a Paragon. In my mind, this is what I think the movie could be, and everything that I’m gonna do is gonna fall short of it. But then why did he decide this year to be like, fuck it. It’s happening. I’m doing it this year. It’s gonna come out, right? Because, to your point, it can always get better. I’m sure. Now that he’s put it, put out the work, he’s like, oh, you know, it’s still not perfect. I’m sure, in his mind, he’s like, it’s still not perfect. But this is as perfect as as it’s going to be right now, and there’s a constant striving. All of our favorite artists never truly retired. In fact, you know, Daniel Day Lewis just came out of retirement. Did you know that? Yeah, the man said,

Herbert Lui  1:06:38  

I’m down. No idea. Yeah, yeah. He’s

Hamza Khan  1:06:39  

like, I’m the nine. Is my last movie that I’m going to do, and now he’s back again, right? So I think that there’s, like, something about the artist spirit that always wants them to come back, and they’re always striving. They’re always like, ah, the Paragon is not quite there. Interestingly enough, man, my Paragon, for like, a public speaking experience, isn’t actually a public speaker. Like, there’s no speaker who I look at and I’m like, I Okay. I mean, there’s some thought leaders who I aspire to. Like, I would say somebody asked me the earlier this week, shout out to Marnie. She’s like, who’s like, whose career are you trying to emulate? Was it like the spirit of the question? I was like, like, straight up, it’s like, not anyone alive. It’s actually Abraham Maslow, because I know that, like, Hamza Khan as a as an entity, as a meat sack is going to disappear. But like I would, I would my soul would be happy looking down from the heavens hopefully being like, yeah, man. But like the Hamza’s model, the equivalent of hierarchy of needs has lived on. Like, I want to be able to package an idea into as accessible of a heuristic available to everybody. So that’s my Paragon. But coming back to performance, for instance, you know, earlier this week, I did a couple of talks, and one of the talks that I did was pretty cool. It was for cphr, Alberta, and I tried out a whole bunch of new things, new material. Ha, new material. And it was 100% new material. And dude standing ovation. And it was kind of surreal. I know, I know, I know, I know, dude. And I walked off the stage being like, that was so cool, man. Like, let’s just figure out how this happened. Let me put it all together. And then I was like, man, but you know what, as good as it felt, it’ll never feel as good as it might be to be Drake in 2014 at the Would you like a tour, tour where there was that big sort of like blue circle, and he steps up, and he does Tuscan leather for the first time, and the lights go black, and they open up, and suddenly he’s just standing there, and he’s not moving. And I’m like, oh, and like to hear the audience cheer and yell. I’m like, Ah, there’s levels to this shit. But you know what, dude, one can try, one can strive, and I might always fall short of that ideal, but as a creative I’m just going to continue to move in that direction. I’m going to continue to move in that direction, and there’s going to be output, and I’m going to do it angry, I’m going to do it afraid, I’m going to put shit out there, and it’s going to be mid but there’s going to be a constant, iterative striving that’s going to happen towards what I believe can be the best version of my production.

Herbert Lui  1:09:03  

I love that. I think what you said there was so important, which was an ideal, right? I think for for people, especially just starting off doing creative work, you have a vision of where you want things to go, or a vision of who you want to be, like a sense of wishful identification, almost, and and and you’re gonna fall so far short of that, both in terms of, like, the literal project work, and be, like, so disappointed in what you’re doing right now. And also, like, you know, the legacy of where you want to go. I think I have this, like, mental model, or like this, this analogy or thought, where I’ll say it like this. This is a story on my blog, and I forget where I got it. I think I got it from 4000 weeks by Oliver Berkman. And basically, there’s an architect. He’s the world’s best architect, and he, he. Came up with the best possible, like building. He imaginable, right? He’s like, This is amazing. I’ve got in the plans. And people travel around the world to see it. Kings, queens are trying to acquire it. And ultimately, what he ends up doing is he, he burns the plans because he cannot stand the idea of having somebody put the building together and they’re inevitably going to mess it up right. And whereas, if it just stays a plan and a vision in his brain, then it stays perfect. And I think the what I used to take away from that was, oh, that’s, you know, just, just do the thing right, like this, architect should have just sucked it up, and the world could have, could have been happier with a really cool building. But then I also thought, You know what? That’s the architect’s choice. You’re also allowed to have something that’s so precious to you, that remains an ideal, that’s just for you, and you’re just not going to show anyone else. And that’s part of the that’s one of the best parts of being a creative you know, like a lot of the the literature we have now, what the way they were published was, after someone passed away, there are these private journal entries or letters, and they’re like, Please burn these. And the person who decided to burn these, decided to be a horrible friend or family member, but a really generous person the rest of the world and go like, you know what? I’m going to publish these, because these are really good, and we have so much wisdom into into someone’s insight and experience that otherwise would have been lost. So, you know, I think there’s something really interesting about being okay with not living up to your ideal most of the time, and then, like, you know, what, if you happen to live up to it, or if you want to protect your ideal, then don’t publish it. And be okay with that too, because that’s the only way to keep it perfect in your brain and to keep it as, like, a fantasy is just going to remain a fantasy. You know, it’s, it’s the second it touches reality, it’s going to be messy.

Hamza Khan  1:12:06  

Well, well said. And Herbert, man, I first of all shout out to you for being patient and going over time here, and shout out to the materialists listening to this and watching this. You’re, you’re aware that Herbert and I have been trying to wrap up the episode for the last half an hour, this is exactly no but this is exactly why we started the podcast, because this is now flowing like this is exactly what a conversation sounds like. And Herbert and I get together, I think I just want to, I want to add here, and I’m not going to pretend like this might not lead into other conversations and extend the podcast, but like, let’s just keep cooking until we feel like it’s natural to wrap this up. What you just described here is OOF man, like this ties in so perfectly with episode one. So Episode One was kid, see ghost writers. Episode Two is everything. I’m not. And I think that this is the moment where we can tie it back to Episode One. You probably have material that you’re thinking about putting out there, and let’s just use writing as one creative expression. Some of your best writing is something that you’ve been thinking about. You’ve been thinking about putting together an autobiography, a memoir, or maybe write a piece of fiction. Just be careful, right? Because you can be part of your imposter syndrome can convince you to part with that idea prematurely. Your imposter syndrome might say this idea is not all that. Let me just go and turn this into an article for this blog, or let me, you know, publish this in a half assed way, but like, trust your instincts if your imposter syndrome is getting in the way of you putting something out there. Maybe also pay attention to the flip side of that emotion, which is like, why are you feeling so protective of this idea? Maybe you cherish this idea a lot more. And that UN the example that you gave her a bit of like, unfinished works that are, you know, found by the estate. Maybe those were, like, Magnum opuses, oh, by waiting to be published, but just didn’t have a chance to manifest and materialize because of a finite lifespan. But there’s something over there, right? You’re actually encouraging me, in this moment right now, to not die with my music still inside of me, like there’s at least two more books that I want to write, but my imposter syndrome, up until this episode, has been getting in the way, like I and how that’s manifesting is like, rather than writing, I’m just compiling more notes, gathering more links, and I’m like, at this point, I’m just procrastinating at this point. At this point, I am doing busy work to convince myself that I’m making progress here, but the progress will not be made until I actually write down the first word for this book, and then once I’ve written the first word, it won’t matter what I’m doing until I’ve written the second word and the third word, so I actually just have to write now and get over my own shit. And this book might be commercially a flop. You know, this book might not become a best seller. Nobody might buy this book. Maybe. I’ll have like, you know, five purchases, and you know, one of them will be Herbert, the other will be my wife, Bailey, and the other three will be me, right? That might happen, but the zeitgeist might shift. And maybe 50 years from now, somebody reads this book and they’re like, Oh, my God, this was so ahead of its time. It’s the equivalent of, you know, what 2001 A Space Odyssey was. And I’m not saying that. You know my book is going to reach that level of commercial success, but or critical success, but that exists as a paragon, that exists as the ideal. And all that matters right now is that whatever you’re feeling when it comes to imposter syndrome, you just push through that. You interrogate it, you understand it, you map out the feeling, but you push through it. Do it afraid. Do it, angry, just do it.

Herbert Lui  1:15:45  

I love that. I think it is something really it is. I think the question is, are you okay with the things you have left to say, not and not saying them right? Because life is not guaranteed. Right tomorrow is not guaranteed. And I also can relate to the research thing. It’s just like I’ve always been under the impression that quality can be used as an excuse to procrastinate, and I’m just as guilty. I’m also working on new book. Spent way too much time compiling notes, doing research, not that it’s a horrible thing, because I could afford to do it, but also it was like, okay, but I want to do a lot more books than one every four years. And this, this pace isn’t really working for me. I think one story I came across recently was the parable of, like, the Boilermaker or whatever. And there’s a Picasso version of this. I also blogged about this, but it’s like, basically, okay, we’ll use the Picasso one, because this is newman.net Thank you, man. So look, there’s a, there’s a there’s a woman who sees Picasso at a restaurant, and she said, Oh, my God, it’s Picasso. I love Picasso. And and so she goes up to Picasso say, hey, excuse me. Love your work. Really, respect you like and Picasso say, Oh, thank you. And the woman’s like, can you actually draw me a sketch of something, anything? And Picasso’s like, sure. Takes a napkin, you know, grabs a pencil five, takes 30 seconds, and, just right, scribbles something together and draws something very Picasso and and he hands it to her, and like, Thank you, that’ll be $10,000 and the woman’s like, what that was that took you 30 seconds? And he was like, No, that took me 40 years, and that’s, I think that’s the thing that I tell myself, specific to the research thing, right? But also, you know, whenever I’m feeling like, Oh, this isn’t ready yet, or I’m not sure about this yet, or things like that, I think about, look, I’ve lived for I’ve now done. I’ve been in my career for over a decade. I’ve lived for over 30 years now. Yeah, and even, like, even if I took two months, three months, to do a book, I think something would interesting would come out of it, especially if I leaned in to my prior lived experiences. I have a friend this, this great executive coach, Jason Shen, S, H, E N, his whole thing is, in order for these people to succeed, these outliers to succeed. We actually, I count myself among them outliers he defines it, or my understanding of how he defines it is there. There are people who don’t really fit in the norm of things right, like, either, you know, just don’t fit in with dominant culture, or maybe don’t fit in with like standards for what, what’s normal, maybe neurodivergent, maybe whatever, right, and, and we actually often need to do, like, to adhere to really different rules than what the system. He uses the word system in it, and we need to adhere to different rules and what the system provides. And so that’s what this really beautiful, small book, weirdly brilliant, is about. He did it in 30 days. And when he told me he wanted to do a book in 30 days, I was like, No way, right? Like, I’m gonna. I didn’t say this to Jason, because I’m, you know, I respect Jason a lot. I didn’t want to hurt his confidence. But at the time, I was like, No way. 30 days probably not worth reading, right? Like, yeah. And so he gave me the book, and I looked at it, and I was like, Yo, this is, like, really good now and and that’s why I’m so glad I didn’t say that to Jason, because, you know, I mean, Jason would have done it anyway, because he’s strong like that, and he, you know, he’s, he knows what he wants to do. But also, like, I was wrong. I was like, Oh my gosh, this book that Jason cooked up in 30 days completely broke my assumptions of what I thought writing was. And writing a book meant, don’t get don’t get me wrong, I think, you know, it could have used a proofreading polish in past. But I was also like, very much, like, you know what? Like, I actually don’t really mind the, you know, the repeat word or the typo, like, it’s very occasional, first of all, and second of all, it’s just, it’s also the book is called weirdly brilliant. And this little book is weirdly brilliant itself. Like, it’s like, it was amazing. Like, I was like, when does that happen? And so, you know, I wrote about weirdly brilliant my blog too, but I just wanted to put that out there and be like, look like that 30 day thing. And watching Jason go through that really helped feed I don’t know what the opposite of imposter syndrome is, but like, whatever that aspect is, like that that’s what it helped feed. For me. I was like, wow. Like, like, I’ve definitely done enough research, but also like to see that someone could make something so great in so such a short amount of time, was really nice. Wow,

Hamza Khan  1:20:58  

there. If there was an imposter syndrome inverse. It would be like creative amplification or something like that. Dude, this is a full circle moment. Let me see if I can actually wrap this up here, not because I see it so clearly, right? So this guy, Jason, he respects you. He respects your perspective. He’s a friend, for sure. Yes, okay, good friend, good friend. Now here’s the thing, if you did say to Jason, if you projected your limiting beliefs, and forgive me for describing them so harshly, they are limiting beliefs. If you projected your limiting beliefs that a quality book can’t be written in 30 days onto Jason, the risk existed that Jason would have internalized that message and been like, oh shit, somebody who I respect, who I admire, who is a published author, Best Selling Author, Herbert, is telling me that this can’t be done, and suddenly his inner voice would be a composite of his doubts about the book, right? But they wouldn’t have been his voice. It would have been your voice that would have prevented him from putting out the book. You know what I mean? So that is, that is the moment where, like, you see, hopefully, what has materialized for you materialists, is the genesis of how innocuously creative criticism can lead to imposter syndrome. I think what we just touched on here is like a fine line, and kudos to you for not giving that to him, because in his vulnerable state, he could have internalized that, and that would have prevented us from having this beautiful realization, this materialization, if you will.

Herbert Lui  1:22:24  

I appreciate that, man. I love it. And I think that, like, you know, it’s when you have friends around you who are trying to do things you got to be supportive like and do not like. You can be supportively critical and still also be supportive, right? Like, really emphasize, like, love the effort you’re putting into this. You’re going to do it. I think this one little thing could make it better and be specific, but very come, like, come from that place. You know, don’t be bringing people down and stuff, because that’s like, the opposite of a gift. You’re like, borrowing from your friend. And that’s the other thing too about imposter syndrome is like, and really, like any inner critic. Thing is, someone else says it to you once, but you hear it 1000 times. You know it’s like the most. It can be really painful. I have a related concept to this, which is, like the four inner beings of a writer, right? You have the the jester, the playful one, right? They’re like, they’re the one that, actually, they’re the only one that can make things. That’s their only superpower. Episode Three,

Hamza Khan  1:23:28  

that’s it. Okay,

Herbert Lui  1:23:29  

let’s do it. I think, hold on, let’s pause, let’s pause it here. Because I think you’re right. I think we kind of, like, we’re deviating here. Oh my gosh, it’s gonna, you’re gonna go into your movie, you know, like, it’s like,

Hamza Khan  1:23:42  

this is great. Episode Three. Let’s mull on this. Let’s, let’s riff on the idea of the creative fool, the gesture, the the inner child. It’s, it’s beautiful. This is good. Such a natural progression, a to go from like Kitsy ghostwriters, the immaterial to like you’re to like like. Now that you’ve materialized, you’re editing yourself, and you’re reducing yourself back down to your core component. But what’s left once you’ve materialized, you’re that little infant, you’re that you’re that fool, you’re that playful, creative, demon, Goblin, Gremlin, whatever the case may be. Let’s save that for episode. This is sure, dude. This has been a lot of for sure, man. This has been so much fun. I’m so glad we’re doing this.

Herbert Lui  1:24:21  

It’s been great. I want to close. Maybe this could be an interesting note to close on. I don’t know if it’s so what, and I can. I’m happy to start, maybe we list out some things we’re grateful for, for those experiences. Oh, yeah. So you’ve got your experience. I got my experience because, I mean, a, maybe there’s a people pleasing aspect of me that’s like, oh, in case they’re listening to this, oh, my god, yeah. Also to, you know, I think both you and I are very grateful we came out of it stronger. We came out of it better. And so let’s also like, let’s just try to throw it out there. Yeah, people listening to this, you know, go

Hamza Khan  1:24:56  

for it. You first. For me, I

Herbert Lui  1:24:58  

think I. Happy to go first. I think for me, I first of all, asides from meeting all the people and like getting to know them, which has been really great, even though the working experience was turbulent, sometimes I think that I’m super grateful for the voice and tone just I picked it up and I punched it up so hard, and there would be times where it’s still like, hey, this isn’t voicey Enough. This isn’t Tony enough. I’m like, I don’t even know what that means, but I think I actually, I think I actually came out of that with a much clearer understanding of what voice and tone generally is, and then also how to get mine to be much clearer. I think before I kind of like constantly, like, stole other people’s voices or tried, I tried on a bunch of different like, outfits, and really, I think from there, you know, it was both through this experience and working on creative doing whereas, like, very clearly, oh, I think I’ve like, found where I am, and I what aspects of this kind of voice and tone that I like. So that’s one thing. Second of all, I became much better at giving feedback as well, because when you receive really bad feedback, and there was particularly one person on the team who was who I their feedback style didn’t work for me, but there was another person on the team that whose feedback style really worked for me, like, and I can tell why, why they were like. They were just like they were, I think they taught as an instructor before it just really showed. And I was like, Oh my gosh, every single thing in this doc is like, super actionable, super clear, super like, How did I not see this? But also I want to write this down for the future. And and I realized I want to be that kind of editor. And so when you receive that kind of feedback, you can also give it much in a much more clear, specific and strong way, right? And the third, I mean, the add on to that is I became a much better editor throughout that process. I think for me, when I used to take in work, my standard for it would just be like, okay, cool. Like, let’s not go too far here, because, again, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially the writers. And now I’m like, Does this need to do what it needs to do right? And does this, is this working right, like editing, very much as a feel kind of process. That’s another thing that I learned from this whole thing, one out of many lessons. But does this feel right? And in order for it to feel right, you really need to have a sense of, like, what, what the author’s trying to do, or at least even be clear on, hey, I don’t know what you’re really trying to I don’t know where this is going yet. Or Or like, this feels disconnected. This feels thin. This feels whatever, like it very much, is a feeling based process. And being able to lean into your, read, your feel of the thing, right? You might need to, you know, 111, smooth over. Might not be quick enough. You need to take two or three passes at it to really feel it out and be like, Oh, this, this almost feels whole. It’s just missing this thing here. That’s the thing that was really special to me, that I think also is harder to replicate with AI, like, it’s like, it’s very much, because it’s such a tacit and feeling based, there’s a feeling based dimension to being an editor. Sure, you know, if someone’s reacting all defensively to feedback, like, Oh, hold on, like, what’s going on? So they were super patient, and I’m super grateful for the chance to work with them. Shout

Hamza Khan  1:28:18  

out to that was very, very gracious of you, man, this, this is reminding me of the Key and Peele skit, Obama anger translator. I think it can be Herbert. I’m gonna be Herbert’s anger translator. Let me be Herbert’s anger translator and just translate what he just said. This might offend my political connects, right?

Herbert Lui  1:28:40  

Yo, what’s the J story? We knew. We knew. Why don’t you do your thing? And then we’ll close with that. Let

Hamza Khan  1:28:46  

me close with the J story. Let me close the J story. Impostor syndrome, the recent iterations of my keynotes, there’s a point where I sort of like break from the visual style that people are used to. So I’m playing with like black and white, light and dark, and it’s very minimal. But there’s a point at which I talk about becoming my best self, and what that process looks like, what it looked like to materialize and visually, the slides change. And I talk about how I come from a long line of people who endured the legacy of colonization in in the motherland. I talk about growing up on the spirit of hip hop and stuff. So when I talk about the spirit of hip hop. The slides have typically been Jay Z, and then I did this keynote, and somebody comes up to me at the book signing, which is a whole other story. We should talk about that next week, right? I’m doing this book signing, and some lady comes up to me. She’s like, everything was great, except Jay Z’s canceled. Now, did you know that? And I was like, I was like, not yet, but it’s likely going to happen because of the whole Diddy freak off situation. Yeah, I know. I know I I hate

Herbert Lui  1:29:49  

to say,

Hamza Khan  1:29:52  

Hold on that new shit. Say, how come? Well, my old shit, buy my old album. That’s, that’s, that was my. Official statement on it. I know, I know it’s it’s not looking good. It’s not looking good. Oh yeah. So I so I have just, I have preemptively switched that slide to Kendrick Lamar, and I feel like such a for doing that

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Herbert Lui  0:00  

So hard to get mine to be much clearer. I think before, I kind of, like, constantly, like, stole other people’s voices or tried, I tried on a bunch of different, like, outfits, and really, I think from there,

Hamza Khan  3:10  

you do your thing, and then we’ll close with that. Let me close with the J story. Let me close the J story. Imposter syndrome, the recent iterations of my keynotes, there’s a point where I sort of like break from the visual style that people are used to. So I’m playing with like black and white, light and dark, and it’s very minimal. But there’s a point at which I talk about becoming my best self and what that process looks like, what it looked like to materialize and visually the slides change, and I talk about how I come from a long line of people who endured the legacy of colonization in in the motherland, I talk about growing up on the spirit of hip hop and stuff. So when I talk about the spirit of hip hop, the slides have typically been Jay Z and then I did this keynote, and somebody comes up to me at the book signing, which is a whole other story. We should talk about that next week, right? I’m doing this book signing, and some lady comes up to me. She’s like, everything was great, except, uh, Jay Z’s canceled. Now, did you know that? And I was like, I was like, not yet, but it’s likely going to happen because of the whole Diddy freak off situation. Oh, yeah, I know. I know. I I hate to say

Say, how come on my old shit, buy my old album. That’s, that’s, that’s my official statement on it. Oh, I know, I know it’s, it’s, it’s not looking good. It’s not looking good. Oh, yeah. So I so I have just, I have preemptively switched that slide to Kendrick Lamar, and I feel like such a for doing that.

Herbert Lui 

you know, it was both through this experience and working on creative doing, whereas, like, very clearly, oh, I think I’ve, like, found where I am and I what aspects of this kind of voice and tone that I like. So that’s one thing. Second of all, I became much better at giving feedback as well. Because when you receive really bad feedback, and there was particularly one person on the team who was who I their feedback style didn’t work for me, but there was another person on the team that whose feedback style really worked for me, like, and I can tell why, why they were like, they were just like they were. I think they taught as an instructor before it just really showed. And I was like, Oh my gosh, every single thing in this doc is, like, super actionable, super clear, super like, How did I not see this? But also I want to write this down for the future. And and I realized I want to be that kind of editor. And so when you receive that kind of feedback, you can also give it much in a much more clear, specific and strong way. And the third, I mean, the add on to that is I became a much better editor throughout that process. I think for me, when I used to take in work, my standard for it would just be like, okay, cool. Like, let’s not go too far here, because, again, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially the writers. And now I’m like, Does this need to do what it needs to do right? And does this, is this working right? Like editing very much as a feel kind of process. That’s another thing that I learned from this whole thing, one out of many lessons. But does this feel right? And in order for it to feel right, you really need to have a sense of, like, what, what the author’s trying to do, or at least even be clear on, hey, I don’t know what you’re really trying to I don’t know where this is going yet. Or, or, like, this feels disconnected. This feels thin. This feels whatever like it very much is a feeling based process. And being able to lean into your, read, your feel of the thing, right? You might need to, you know, 111, smooth over. Might not be quick enough. You need to take two or three passes at it to really feel it up and be like, Oh, this. This almost feels whole. It’s just missing this thing here. That’s the thing that was really special to me, that I think also is harder to replicate with AI, like, it’s like, it’s very much, because it’s such a tacit and feeling based, there’s a feeling based dimension to being an editor. You know, if someone’s reacting all defensively to feedback, you’re like, Oh, hold on. Like, what’s going on? So they were super patient, and I’m super grateful for the chance to work with them.

Hamza Khan  

Shout out to that was very, very gracious of you, man, this, this is reminding me of the George the Key and Peele skit Obama anger translator. I think it can be Herbert. I’m gonna be Herbert’s anger translator. Let me be Herbert’s anger translator and just translate what he just said, this might offend my political connects, right?

Herbert Lui  

Yo, what’s the J story? We need it. Why

Hamza Khan 

don’t

Like us. No, dude, yes, I’m, I was gonna, I was gonna put on a ovo Raptors hat today, and I’m like, I, I can’t do it. I just, I’m gonna have to. I. A lost one. Yeah, dude,

that’s the story. That’s the story. So look, it’s not an it’s not an official statement. My My position is still like, you know, let’s just wait to see how this plays out. I pray to God, Jay and Beyonce were not involved in this, but God forbid, if they were involved in this. I think that’s I’ve had a good run with. Stop managing, start leading. I’m gonna have to stop, stop promoting that because, like, a significant component of that is my love of Jay and rock nation. But, you know, it’s okay, the idea moves on. And I think that at some point in new material, we’ll talk about, like, separating the art from the artists and all that. But if I can just quickly add that was the J story. I just want to also celebrate the Pearson, the team involved in Pearson, the same way that Herbert was celebrating the lessons learned and the people that he worked with during that experience that we used as the keyhole to unpack imposter syndrome. For me, that was Pearson, I clearly stated who was involved in that. I’m glad that I went through that, because it has gifted me confidence in the things that make my writing uniquely Hamza like I now know, as a result of going through that the sediment that was left after the criticism were the things that are authentically part of my writing style. If you read my writing, then you know that I revel in in being prosaic. I revel in it being elaborate and eloquent and there being like a musicality to my writing. It’s even evident in the way that I speak. I enjoy deep cut Hip Hop movie, pop culture references, all of that. So thank you Pearson team for holding up a mirror to what I now know is part of my signature style. Number one. Number two, really cool to be able to work with a mentor. Man, if, if you haven’t had a chance to do that, Herbert, to write alongside a mentor, I’m like, Ah, you know what this is? This is probably what it felt like for like Drake to be writing with Jay, you know? So it was cool. It was like a magical one year of, like, the frequency of phone calls and texts and meetings with my mentor. I’m like, wow. In addition to being able to write with this person, I’m now, I’m now meeting them all the time and talking to them. So that was cool. And then the last one, just to flex a little bit, man, like, I got that Pearson logo now, you know, I got that CO sign, right? Like, I’m gonna have imposter syndrome until I actually become Dr Hamza Khan. When I do that, I’m looking forward to dropping the qualifier slides, and I call the qualifier slides that slides that, you know, they’re just a bunch of logos right now, so that people take me seriously. And they’re like, it’s not a dweeb. This guy actually knows what he’s talking about. But until that point, until that point, thinking they lions and tigers and bears, I go hunt and put heads on my fireplace. Okay, so I’m fumbling. I’m fumbling my closing here. But let’s just, let’s just, let’s just end it at that. Let’s just end at that. There’s like a big fire, big piercing up there. You know,

Herbert Lui  

that was fire. Man, that was fire. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this. You got through the whole hour, 37 minutes of it, Hamza, thank you for the extra time as well. Of course, this was great. This was great, man, thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Hamza, for being part of this. This is great sharing too.

Hamza Khan 

And while we’re at it, because we’re still very early, if you haven’t already subscribed, if you’re listening to this and you enjoy what you have to say, Please subscribe. Please like this on any platform that you found it at. Please give us a rating. All of this stuff is going to help us in the initial lift of the show, and tell your friends.

Herbert Lui 

Tell your friends about it. All right, peace,

Hamza Khan

Peace.

Welcome to New Material. Join Herbert Lui and Hamza Khan as they dive headfirst into the raw, messy, and electrifying creative process animating this show. From ghostwriting for tech giants and celebrity thought leaders to stepping into the spotlight as authors and speakers, the dynamic duo unpacks their journey of moving from ‘behind the scenes’ to ‘center stage.’ In this unfiltered conversation, they share candid insights into the thrill—and nerves—of launching new material into the world, the art of collaboration, and how speaking your truth can break down the thin veil between invisibility and impact. If you’ve ever felt like a ghostwriter in your own life, this episode’s for you. Step through the membrane. It’s time to materialize.

Episode 1 summary:

In our first episode, Herbert and Hamza unpack what it means to step out from behind the scenes and bring your voice front and center. As two creatives who’ve spent years ghostwriting for others, they get real about the evolution from crafting ideas in the shadows to launching this show and exploring creativity through every lens imaginable. From creative block to confidence-building, the duo break down the personal and professional shifts that take any creative process from invisible to impactful. Whether you’re starting your own project or just curious about how the creative process unfolds, this episode will give you a behind-the-scenes look at the journey.

In this episode:

• Meet The Virgos: Why your anxious hosts are doing this.
• Getting Real: Moving from ghostwriting for others to claiming your own creative space.
• The Power of Ghostwriting: Economics, ego, and stepping out of the shadows.
• The Thin Line of Confidence: How competence turns to confidence and how that pushes creative boundaries.
• Remembering The Wins: Building a list of top moments to fuel future creativity.
• The Spark of NEW MATERIAL: Why this isn’t just a show—it’s a window into how ideas are born

Transcript:

Editor’s note: This transcript was automatically generated by AI, and we have not edited below this sentence.

Herbert Lui 00:10

Okay. Here we are. Today is the It’s a big day, Hamza, isn’t it?

Hamza Khan 00:16

It is a big day. And, man, I am nervous, and I don’t get nervous before any interviews, podcasts. I get nervous before keynotes, but I am. I’m shit scared right now. I’m gonna keep it 100 with you and the community of listeners and viewers who were lovingly going to refer to as materialists until further notice, we might delete that later. But dude, I’m terrified. Why are you nervous? I’m so curious to know.

Herbert Lui 00:47

So yes, you can read it on my face. Maybe we had talked about it before. I am super nervous as well. Okay, well, we can talk. We can unpack the nerves. I think for me, we’ve, we’ve, it’s been practiced. I think it’s also like, this is the first serious one we’re doing, and so let’s really do it, though. I think we’ve got a minute now of us kind of preambleing. Let’s get into it. Let’s get into introduce ourselves for people who don’t know you. If there’s a listener here who doesn’t know you. Who are you?

Hamza Khan 01:22

Thank you. My name is Hamza Khan. The correct way to pronounce that is Hamza with a heavy H and a u, like humming a song. So Hamza and then Khan from the epiglottis. And interesting fact is that in Arabic, my Indian parents had to give me an Arabic name Hamza in Arabic loosely translates to Lion and Khan translates to Herbert. Wait for it, King.

Herbert Lui 01:47

You’re kidding. Whoa.

Hamza Khan 01:49

No, not at all. I know, and except it turns out that they named me, though, after a villain from a 70s Bollywood movie. Who the hell does that like? Who? Who looks at it, who looks at a newborn and thinks, you know what it’s giving Darth Vader, it’s giving Baron Harkonnen. I don’t know, but thank you, Mom and Dad, dude, I’m an author, educator and entrepreneur. I’m a multi hyphenate, but in my heart, first and foremost, I am a creative. I am a writer, and that is what is so beautiful about this project that we are embarking on right now. As I get to jam with my boy, I get to jam with a fellow creative, a fellow writer, a fellow page Walker and explorer. So that’s me. Man, now tell us about you

Herbert Lui 02:34

for sure. Man, oh, that lion king intro was something. My name is Herbert. My name is Herbert. Loi Hamza Khan came up with the genius idea of how to pronounce my last name correctly. It’s spelled l, u, i. So people generally say Louis or things like that, but it’s actually you pronounce it like l, u, H, dash y, that’s it. Loi, so it’s l, u, H, dash y, Loy. Amazing, amazing. So we have Khan, we have LOI. Did I say that, right? Hamza, did I get that, right?

Hamza Khan 03:12

Dude, you got it, man, the shareback connection is strong.

Herbert Lui 03:19

Oh, man. And so you are now listening to our podcast. It’s called the new material podcast, yes, and we are so excited to present this to you. This is the podcast where we are going to dive into creativity, productivity and through the lens of hip hop culture, through the lens of business, I just realized also that I, like, introduced a pod again. Before I introduce myself, I was like, here’s my name, and then let’s just introduce the pod. So it’s a little discombobulated here. That’s the pod. And to close up, my intro, I am an author of a book called Creative doing I’m the Director of Marketing at a company called Fgx right now. Helps a lot of companies with their global IT shipping. You got servers. We help you move them and and that’s those are. That’s like, the two main things I’m focused on right now. And that’s how I describe my work. Yeah, man, I love teaching. I love talking to people and helping them unblock their creativity and speaking on that topic. So that’s me. And

Hamza Khan 04:28

what’s so cool about this is how this podcast, how this show, how this project came together, was so organic, and I was reflecting on it this morning on a walk with Bailey to a local neighborhood. I was gonna say cafeteria, but a cafe, which I guess cafe, is short for cafeteria. I don’t know. I should look up the etymology of that. You’re gonna you’re gonna hear the word etymology a lot on this podcast. Herbert and I are word nerds. We like to unpack and reverse engineer the language that we use. We are firm believers that the act of writing is the act of thinking, which we’re going to talk about today. We’re. But on the way there, I was thinking, how did this come together? Like, how did you and I, with our insanely busy schedules, decide to make this a priority every week, every Saturday. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been recording demos, which we are very excited to share someday as we part after we parse through them and remove any potential cancellable material, because there is a lot, dude, you got to hear some of the earlier episodes. In fact, I’m not going to get into it. Let’s just save that for the Patreon. Save that for like, the materialist club. But like, what you’re going to witness in real time with Herbert and I through the new material show is unfiltered access into the creative process. You’re going to watch two people who pride themselves on polished creative output come together in a essentially multi week, hopefully, you know, forever creative jam session, and build on this very sort of nervous, discompoted, to use Herbert’s word, disjointed, messy process. It’s going to be a beautiful thing. And we’re going to look back at episode one, we’re going to watch it, we’re going to listen to it, and be like, Wow, dude, we have come such a long way. I just know how you and I think I just know the type of output that you and I pride ourselves on. This is how you start. And it started with Herbert and I reconnecting because we both moved to New York, and we’re like, man, we’ve been here for a long time. We’ve never actually hung out. We’ve never talked. I mean, we talk all the time, through email, through text and like, through the through the ether of the internet, but we said, let’s just meet up. And we met up a couple of, I’m gonna say, months ago, and we were at the Soho House, and we were having the greatest conversation, like no time had elapsed since we last connected in Toronto, and there was a mutual feeling that, like, we should have recorded that, because that was a lot of fun. We covered a lot of ground, tons of belly laughs. And it’s also, like, super introspective and actionable, because we both walked away from that inspired for our respective projects. And then I think it was Herbert you said, Let’s just record that next time. Like, let’s just not make this hypothetical. And we recorded it. And I remember that you and I, we exchanged the audio file, and we said, let’s see if this passes the walking through New York test. Let’s listen to this. And it did, like I was laughing out loud, like, like a, like a, like a mad person to themselves. And here we are now, I think seven weeks later, we’ve just been recording these demos. And last week, we were like, Hey, man, I think we’re here. We’re at 70% let’s just launch. I

Herbert Lui 07:27

love that. It’s 100% true. I remember, you know, recording these has been such a delight, and I couldn’t agree more. I feel like it’s like we’re lifting the curtain a little bit and saying and taking you behind the scenes, if you’re listening to this and and you’re gonna see the universe through, well, you’re gonna see our respective universes and through our perspective. And we are gonna do our best to deliver both very educational, insightful stuff, but also in a very entertaining way. And oh gosh, we got a topic for you today. Usually. I mean, before we dive in, do you want to quickly catch us up on how you’ve been like, what you’ve been saying this week? How you Yes, you’ve been doing this

Hamza Khan 08:14

is good and again, materialist. Thank you for listening to us stumble our way through this intro, which has taken a lot more time than we would have liked to, you know, but, but again, we’re learning

Herbert Lui 08:25

we can also cut it. That’s the thing. We can edit the hell out of this episode.

Hamza Khan 08:28

This is true. Let’s, let’s, let’s consider that possibility. Okay, so how have I been? I’ve been good, man. I always find that September, because we’re recording this now in the middle of September, September is such a rush, dude, because the lull of the summer is over. Everyone’s back to work, and everyone’s feeling that creative, productive energy, and I feel like it just cascades. And I found a journal entry to myself the other day, and sometimes my journal entries are just like, one one bar, and this, this was just one line, and it said emails are other people’s to do lists. And I was like, Wow, man, like my inbox is just full of other people’s to do lists, and I trying to be a productive, respectful, peak performing person, professional, if you will. I’ve just found myself constantly engaged in helping other people with their projects. And so like, I look forward to these recordings on Saturday because it’s one of the rare opportunities where I got to work on something that is truly for myself, that is truly free. I mean, look at the way I’m dressed right now. I’m in my natural my natural habitat. I’m wearing, I’m wearing a hoodie. I’m wearing a like a Disney Nike hat, dry fit. Shout out to shout out to Walt Disney. You know, this lighting makes me look like I’m a streamer. It’s, it’s just it. This is me like and how I present myself is, is what people see online, and that’s still me, but this is, like, the most raw, authentic version of me. All of this is to say, long winded way of saying, I’ve been good, but it’s been a lot in terms of academic and professional output, and I’m. I’m white knuckling it, dude, I’m white knuckling it. Oh,

Herbert Lui 10:03

I feel that. And I think that’s very relatable for people listening to this. It’s, it’s super interesting, man, hearing you say that about emails and the inbox being other people’s to do lists or other agendas as well. It’s like, it’s challenging, because we live in a world where it’s it’s nice to be independent, in a way, and I think that’s like a thing people strive for or like even fantasize about. But the reality of things is also, we’re often very interdependent, right? You’re sending out emails, I’m sending out emails, they’re sending out emails to us, right? And we are all kind of relying on each other, because nobody knows, no one person knows how to make a pencil anymore, right? You are. It takes like 10 different people, 10 different companies, to make assemble one pencil. And if you were to make have one person assemble a pencil, it might cost 1000 bucks. Gotta fly here. They gotta do this. You know, totally hypothetical example. I did not I mean that just in generally saying, yeah, they all specialize at certain things. And so I feel that completely. And sometimes, yeah, it totally pains me to be like, Oh, I’m gonna, like, work on someone else’s thing this morning, or I’m gonna spend, like, my best hours of the day working on this. But sometimes it’s also just like, hey, you know what? This is what I got to do, because that person’s also helping me, and they got some skill that I need in order to get the thing done. And so, yeah, it just made me think about that. I definitely thought, I think, like in my earlier years, I’d be like, ah, like, I gotta do my own thing 100% first three hours of the day. And now I’m a lot looser with that now I’m like, You know what this person needs this thing done? I’m gonna go do that. I’m gonna go support them, and they’re gonna go, so support me when, when I need it. So that’s that collaboration, you know, collaboration,

Hamza Khan 11:52

collaboration, part of the aging millennial epiphany series, as we untether ourselves from like, the sort of toxic, hustle culture that was prevalent in our ascent, if you will. Oh my gosh, we’re now appreciating the need for interdependence and collaboration so much so that last night, we were celebrating Bailey’s birthday, and we went to this local Piano Bar in Hell’s Kitchen where I’m living, called so and so is inside the Romer hotel. And they had this incredible show called polite society, where they had a convener, a host, a facilitator. You know, I’m resisting calling her a Sherpa, because she was a white woman, and so we’ll unpack the Sherpa stuff in a bit. She brought together, like this very eclectic group of friends who were artists, and they brought in, like, these Broadway caliber singers. They were actually off Broadway, and it was their night off. And so it was just such a cool thing to watch them in, you know, play and have fun. And it was just such a beautiful show. But I remember there was one rendition of a song. I can’t remember the title, but the refrain was, it’s, it’s, man, it’s so good. Like something to something to the effect of like, it is a pleasure, a privilege, to be a person who needs other people. And it was a celebration of collaboration and interdependence. And I really need to find that song, and we’ll add it to the show notes, but it was about people who need people. And I’m ashamed that I don’t actually know that song, but I’m going to commit it to memory, and I’m going to memorize that song another story for another time. You’re going to learn a lot about us in this process and how I’m actually, like, thinking out loud. This is the process of generating new material, right? New

Herbert Lui 13:25

material, baby. Hums, are you a Virgo?

Hamza Khan 13:27

I’m such a Virgo, dude. What about yourself? Man, yeah, I’m

Herbert Lui 13:32

a Virgo too.

Hamza Khan 13:33

Oh man. This is gonna be a disaster. This is gonna be like, empathy overload and just second guessing and stumping our way through things. But this is all part of the creative process. But let me, let me tie that knot together, or let me just put a bow on that that song made me really appreciate, like, the fundamental idea that is at the heart of a company or a group or a collaborative effort, and what it is essentially any organization, even this collaboration on a podcast is multiple artisans coming together to produce something that they could not independently produce. Like that, to me, is the raw definition of collaboration. An artisan by themselves could produce a podcast. I could do this version of a podcast by myself, it would not be as good. Herbert, you could do this podcast by yourself. It would not be as good, but us coming together is hopefully going to double the pleasure for both of us and the materialists, and half the pain. And your pencil example is a beautiful one. Sure I could buy a Hatori Hanzo, equivalent of a pencil that is made by one artisan in Japan, but ain’t nobody want to buy $1,000 pencil. I need my pencils mass produced, and I need them fast. I need them shipped through prime and so, like I’ve already described, a supply chain that spans multiple companies, and that is the that’s the thing I think, that people are, I hope the materialists really come to appreciate when you and I, Chad, it’s that we take these creative ideas that we see through the lens of art, but we can apply. Them to business. We can apply them to economics. We can apply them to history. It’s a very multidisciplinary show, and that that is, honestly the the relationship that you and I share, which is what, what was the genesis for bringing in a microphone, two microphones and cameras in the first place, which is like, Man, this was a lot of fun. I personally want to revisit these conversations. And so this becomes like a way for us to curate and index this body of knowledge, and I have no idea where it’s gonna go. I mean, that’s a lie. I have some idea of where it’s gonna go, yeah, yeah. But the gems that will be generated through this process and the knowledge that will be crystallized is something that I’m really excited about, for

Herbert Lui 15:37

sure. Me too, man. Me too. I love that. I think I couldn’t have said it better myself. And on that note, let’s dive into it, man. I think we had some intention, for sure, with this episode. We, you know, you came up with a clever title, kids see ghost writers. And I mean, I would love to dive into actually, it’s a it’s a perfect, how would I say this? It’s a perfect first episode because it’s so related to the the concept of new material as well. Yeah. And you know, the the inspiration, a huge part of the inspiration for new material was really actually a story that you told me, and a perspective you shared about how you know you and I, we have this, this common element early in our careers, which is ghostwriting. You’ve done ghost writing for some of the world’s biggest speakers, right? I’ve done ghost writing for some of the world’s biggest tech companies and leaders there, and we are now in the stage of our career where we’re stepping into the spotlight. And we are now like the talent. And so we are, you know, we’re, you know, metaphorically, going from being ghosts to being people. And that is the word for that I Googled. This was called materialization. It’s the process of something invisible becoming material. And I would love to, you know, I would love to start there for people, if you’re listening to this and you have no idea what ghost writing is, you know, maybe you heard it through the Drake and Meek thing. You might have heard of it through LinkedIn or Business Insider saying you can make 10s of 1000s of dollars ghost writing for CEOs. Now we’re gonna, we’re gonna quickly tell you exactly what ghostwriting is. I want to kick it over to you, Hamza. I want to kick it to you first and hear your thoughts on what ghostwriting is, and maybe share some of your experiences or some famous ghostwriters you follow and and that have inspired you, yeah,

Hamza Khan 17:41

dude. And first of all, let me just say how clutch it is that you came up with new material as a title at the last minute because we were veering off irreversible path, man, what this podcast, what the show was initially going to be called, I think would have given us a very short runway. So thank you for that. I love the I love how, how flexible the concept of new material is, and it’ll it just allows for us to, again, treat this like a creative jam session. I eagerly look forward to bringing new material to you and presenting it to you and the materialists, and actually like explaining the thought process behind what it is that I’m writing, speaking about designing all of that. What is a ghost writer, though. Okay, so let’s, let’s play with this idea of the ghost, of the spirit, of the effervescent of of that that exists before the materialization a ghostwriter. And if I could just reduce this definition down to its simplest component parts, is somebody who produces content. And when I say ghost writing, let’s just use this broadly, not just for speeches and songs, but even for, you know, like, like white papers or reports. For instance, somebody who produces work for another person, another entity, but is not credited. And that is the operational difference. When they don’t receive credit for what they produce. That’s what makes them a ghostwriter and not a co writer. So for example, behind me, you can’t see it, but I’ve got two books. So Herbert is a published author. I’m a published author as well. You can see the credits in the burnout gamble and in leadership reinvented, there are editors, there are copy editors, substantial editors, there are researchers, but there’s no CO writers. I didn’t actually write the book with anybody else. I wrote 100% of the words, but I did have a research team. I did have people who fed me stats, who compiled concepts and grouped things together for me, and they all have credit. But nobody gave me a sentence, nobody gave me a series of words, nobody gave me a paragraph or anything that I passed off as my own writing. If I did that, though, they would be considered ghostwriters, because they’re immaterial. They don’t exist. You don’t know that they exist, but their spirit is animating my content. So that, to me, is what ghostwriting is. Ghostwriting is providing somebody else another end. With your words, with your content, and they pass it off as their own. And it’s different from theft, but I think it’s in the same unethical gray area theft would be, you know, plagiarism, like just stealing somebody’s ideas outright, but ghost writing is like, and I use the term involuntary or sorry, voluntary, very loosely, because I think that there’s like, another conversation about, like, the economic conditions that would produce the desperation necessary to be a ghostwriter. And we should definitely unpack that dude, given our unique intersectionality, for sure, that’s what ghostwriting is like. Like Quentin Miller, for example, ghost wrote for Drake. I think that’s well known now, and Drake is doing this mental gymnastics, saying that, no, he was a co writer, and then Quentin Miller was on damage control. But the truth is, man, like we know, that people have provided Drake with reference tracks that he then took. And it’s kind of murky if Drake just repeated the bars, bar for bar, or if he added his own spin to it, but some of the stuff that was revealed in that whole Drake Meek interaction, it’s pretty damning, if you will. Like, if you listen to some of those reference tracks, I’m like, Yeah, Drake, you didn’t really change much, dude, like you just, in fact, like, verbatim, you sang on top of this.

Herbert Lui 21:13

I think the part that really, really stood out to me was the part about economics and the part about who needs to be a ghostwriter versus who gets to be ghostwritten for who hires the ghostwriter? I think that’s really interesting, man, and I think it’s like the choice. Sometimes you got to do stuff for money. That’s work. And I think that’s where a lot of people listening will be able to relate to this. And I think that’s where both of our stories have something in common as well.

Hamza Khan 21:42

I remember, like, so in our household, there’s always, like, two shows that are going on in the background at all times. And like, from my side, it’s usually the Sopranos. I’ve got a problem. I think I’ve marathon. I think the sopranos are just like, always on in the background. And that’s weird. I got to unpack that with my therapist and my wife, Bailey, for her, it’s been over the years like the Kardashians have been going on in the background. And now it’s like transition to, like the Real Housewives series and all that. But I remember there was one moment where I would just pay attention very subconsciously to what was happening in the Kardashian world. And I remember that like Kylie and the other sister, Kendall, Kendall Jenner,

Herbert Lui 22:21

Kylie and Ken think, yeah,

Hamza Khan 22:22

are the same. Are the same people? I have no idea, dude, that’s how the

Herbert Lui 22:26

K’s and the J’s, like, and the just, it’s confused. It’s a little confusing. I’m gonna be I just

Hamza Khan 22:31

know the one that was dating Travis Scott and the one that’s now dating DEVIN BOOKER. So, like, maybe that’s where I left off. And forgive me, if I’m showing my aging millennialism over here for not being up to date with what’s I haven’t kept up with the Kardashians anyways, I remember there was like, one whole season where they were collaborating on or an episode where they were collaborating on a book, and I, like, paid attention. I was like, oh shit. Like, these chicks are about to write books. I’m like, oh man. I like, I’ve read their captions that they’re not even decent caption writers. Are they gonna write books? And then they were like, doing book tours, and they were doing book signings. And I’m like, what the like, what is going on here? Man, like, how did the Kardashians start writing books and now the book is going to become a best seller? And I started looking into it. I’m like, oh, man, there’s no way these people sat down and actually engaged in the process that Herbert and I engage in, which is sticky notes all over the wall, us pulling out our hair, getting index cards, dude, our partners

Herbert Lui 23:25

just we leave the room, and we’re like, ah, and our partners have to deal with it.

Hamza Khan 23:30

It is such a messy, ugly process to write a book. And sure enough, as I dive into it, I’m like, Oh my God, there’s a team of ghost writers that have contributed to this book that now Kylie and Kendall are going to take credit for, and that is the essence of ghost writing. I would much rather they did what 50 cent did, like 50 cents new book. He explicitly says, like, I have written or contributed to some of this, but there’s another person who is a co writer here. That’s the way you go about it. And change the classification. And coming back to the Drake example, I wish Drake just came out and said, I am a band. I am part of a group called Drake. And part of this band includes people like Quentin Miller. But the mistake that I think Drake made, and I’m saying this as a die hard Drake fan, a groupie like ovo, till the day I D, i e, I recognize fully that The Zeitgeist has moved on. I’m still hanging on to that life raft. Wow.

Herbert Lui 24:21

You can say this way out of Toronto. You can’t take Toronto out of the boy. You know, there was

Hamza Khan 24:26

a moment a couple of weeks ago where we were at a party. It was me, Bailey and two other friends, and in the middle of this party, like we’re jamming on this rooftop, and everything’s everything’s dope, and they start playing. They not like us, dude, my demeanor change. I stood still, and I saw Bailey moving a little bit. I grab Bailey. I’m like, No, don’t you move. Stand in solidarity. We refuse to dance to this, wow, this heresy over here, right? Wow, that’s But anyways, the point that I wanted to make was, like, you know, someone like a nos, someone like a Kendrick, someone like a J they equate being an MC, being a. Rapper with writing your own material and many of their songs, many of their messages, speak to that Pusha T is another perfect example of that. Pusha T says, you know, to be a rapper, you have to write your own stuff. And I think the mistake that Drake made was positioning himself and trying to assert himself as a rapper, as an emcee, while also having ghost writers. That being said, though, you know, hip hop is in shambles right now because the rules are changing and it’s being disclosed more and more that all of your favorite MCs perhaps, have had ghostwriters. And so I think this distinction is very essential. What separates a co writer from a ghostwriter from a collaborator? I think we have to be very specific here. But I think what Herbert and I are talking about, what you and I are talking about, dude, is we have been in the position where we have traded our words for money, and people have taken credit for our words, and they’re out there in the world, and we’ve signed these very binding NDAs that will not allow us to say for whom we’ve written for, for which companies and which entities and which speakers and which authors we have written for, but the economics have resulted in downward pressure that led us to earlier in our career. You know, essentially sell our souls. That’s we’re part of it. I haven’t sold it fully, but I’ve definitely sold part of it. Well,

Herbert Lui 26:18

I feel like I 100% agree. I think any artist who takes their work seriously also knows that it’s pretty much impossible to do your work without leaving a bit of yourself in it. And that’s what resonates with me. You kind of hit it on the nose there you do sell your soul a little bit because, you know, any, anyone can put the words together. Everyone types emails, whatever, right? But in order to make something good, in order to make something worth, somebody paying you for and buying from you and believing hey, these ideas, I trust Hamza. I trust Herbert to make me look good and to make me look smart, you we got to give a bit of ourselves over to the work that enables them to do that. I feel like that’s true in branding in general, too, by the way. I think that’s why fashion creative directors all have their names associated with the houses, right? They put they put a lot of themselves into the work, into the brand, into the clothing, into the ideas. And that’s very much the case with ghost writing as well. I’ll say that my experiences with ghost writing, you know, also came from an economic need. It was like, hey, like, this is a this is a good business opportunity for me. I think the final, the first iterations of ghost writing were just very much like you know me at my first job at a mobile app studio, and I was on the marketing team. I remember I was actually started when I was a a senior at Western and I would take a two and a half hour train ride on Friday mornings, I’d wake up at like 5am I would get into Toronto at like 9am or 830 I would and then I would just be talking to people all day, recording the notes from the conversation and then turning them into blog posts and some I remember one time I got in trouble when, like, a VP was reviewing, like another VPS work, and I was the one that got in trouble because they’re like, we can’t talk about it like this. And I was like, whoa. Like, I got the notes like, this is, this is between you guys. And so that’s what happened. But it’s fun. You know, I’m deviating a little bit. I say that all just to say that my experience with ghost writing is a little more on the technical side as a writer, because I still had, you know, my process for that just involved other people’s ideas. It involved interviewing people. It involved taking their ideas. And I think that there’s, there’s a little bit less of like. It wasn’t as painful for me to do that. I felt still very much like a craftsperson, but it’s like, you’re working with other people’s ideas. But you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta punch ’em up a little bit. You gotta make ’em stronger. You gotta cut this out. You gotta keep that in, right like, and then you gotta show other people, and then they’re gonna criticize it and you gotta, like, refine it and stuff, right? And you know, that was very much, even towards the end of my ghost writing, that was still very much the process, especially as I started going to more technical into the more technical aspect, working with companies on their employer branding, it was still very much me talking to software engineers or CTOs or VPs of engineering and talking about to them about things that I had no idea about as well. So it turned out to be a really nice learning process for me. However, it is still very much it involved me or whoever I hired to eventually hired to write it. It very much involves still giving up a piece of ourselves in order to make something really good that the engineer it would have taken them, like six months to write what we could write in like two weeks. Which

Hamza Khan 30:12

is, which is the real power of the creative and collaborative process. And I would argue that they’re one in the same because, you know, the process involves a production of something, and if anything is being produced, there is an element of creativity that goes into it, even in industries that you typically wouldn’t associate with creativity, like, let’s just take accounting, for example. So let me look at my own accountants. I My accountants are a company called Martin Kaplan. Shout out to Brian, shout out to Marty. Right. They have a junior accountant who works on some of my files. Her name is Poonam, and so what Poonam does is she works on my files, and then she gives them to Brian, and then Brian does his work, signs off on it, it goes to Marty. Marty does the final approval on it, and then I get an invoice. I get a report. I get all of my files from Martin Kaplan. But throughout the entire process, I know that there are multiple people involved, and they all get credit. They’re all on the email chains, they’re all on the website, so on and so forth. What this process could look like is if there was an accountant. Let’s just assume I was doing work with only Marty, and my understanding was that Marty was doing 100% of the work, but on the low he was subcontracting without telling me, and passing off Brian and Mark and Putnam’s work as his own. When it becomes ghostwriting is when there is an intent to deceive the consumer of the work into believing that you had no help. That’s what I think, makes it ghostwriting right? You have to pass it off as yours. You have to pass it off as your own. So let’s use the same cast of characters. If there was an accounting conference and Marty went up and delivered a rousing keynote address, the understanding is to the audience. The implicit understanding is that these are Marty’s ideas, but if 100% or even, like even 10% of it was written by Poonam, and Poonam never got any credit for it, technically, Marty used a ghostwriter, for sure, unless, though, what would change that is if he went on stage and he said, I just want to thank the people who helped me put this together for you. Here they are in the audience. Here they are on the slide, so on and so forth. That’s when they become collaborators, co creators, co writers, whatever the case may be. But am I? Am I? Am I picking nits here? Like, am I getting too technical? But you tell me, Herbert, like, what? What is that? What is the line between a collaborator, a co creator, and a ghost writer?

Herbert Lui 32:30

I think that’s a good delineation to make. Man, I feel like it’s, if people don’t know you were there, you’re a ghost, right? Like, that’s, that’s kind of the sense, maybe, okay, it’s like, well, we live in this imagined reality where, yes, like, you could technically just pass the work off as your own. So I do like what you did there, which is basically, hey, do you have to pretend that nobody else worked on this thing, and are you properly giving credit to the people who did there’s, by the way, we use the word nefarious. I don’t know if that’s always the case. Sure. I think there’s a lot of reasons business and otherwise that you would want to pass the work off as your own. For example, in theory, if the ideas were 100% yours, and you kind of just worked with a scribe right to turn this into something, and then an editor, you know, do you really need to throw it out there that this person edited your thing? And then, you know, like, there’s a question? I would say, yes. I would say, what’s the harm? But I would also say someone might look at that and start asking questions, right? And they can also poach your editor. That’s the other thing, right, that the talent, I think, I think that’s always the case with creating whenever there’s a situation where someone is creating opacity, they’re they’re hiding something, and they’re hiding something for a reason. They’re protecting the talent so that the talent doesn’t get poached. Maybe they’re also protecting their bottom line so the talent doesn’t get, you know, a better offer, right? There’s a lot of these things. And they’re also protecting their own reputation by trying to say, Hey, I’m smart, like I, you know, I’m an, I’m a leading thinker, and it’s just me, and trust me, right? And that’s, that’s kind of the thing that maybe it’s not nefarious, but your it’s in your business interest, and it’s in your personal interest, maybe your ego as well, a little bit, let’s be honest, to hide that, and it’s very frustrating for the person working on it, dude, it

Hamza Khan 34:37

is so frustrating. And this is why I’m affording myself a lot of grace here, because this is episode number one, and I’m fully aware, as I’m speaking to you, as we’re thinking about this like this is not our best work, not even close to our best work, dude, we’re just it’s a free, associative, explorative process. But I would challenge anybody who’s familiar. With Herbert’s writing and my writing to tell us that the same brains that are orating to you right now are not the same ones that wrote the words and are writing the words that you have come to appreciate. It’s the same thing. There’s there’s actually not a lot of difference in terms of, like, the complexity of the sentence structure, the sort of deviation from the main point the sub points, like the logic, is still very much present. You can it’s not hard to make the connection between how it is that we’re speaking and how it is that we’re writing. And I think that our efficacy as speakers is largely due to our efficacy and tenacity as writers. And that’s not what I saw with Kylie and Kendall. I mean, if you’ve watched any episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, you know that, however it is, that their book is structured, how prosaic it is is not a reflection of who they actually are. And I am a big believer that the process of writing is the process of thinking. And so to your point, about like, the opacity somebody who’s trying to create the illusion that they’re a lot smarter than they are, and who’s trying to, you know, pass off, pass off the work of somebody else on behalf of a company. That’s where it gets murky for me. At the same time, though, I will say, like having just watched the fall guy, which is a fantastic movie, man, I really appreciated that movie with Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling. Oh,

Herbert Lui 36:21

yes. Oh, I just watched, I watched that. Yes. Okay,

Hamza Khan 36:25

perfect example, right? So, like, super meta movie, it’s just breaking the fourth wall consistently, and it’s all about, you know, the people who are behind the scenes, the stunt people. And, like, a big, a big subplot of this is that they digitize Ryan Gosling, and then, like Aaron Taylor Johnson’s character, takes credit for his work, right in the context of the movie, that’s acknowledged, like everybody knows that this is happening, it’s reflected in the credits, where I would feel deceived as a viewer of watching any movie is if, like I was watching a body double, but we just superimposed, you know, Jason Momoa has faced the entire time, and the movie said starring Jason Momoa, I would have problem with that, because it’s like it wasn’t actually starring him, his likeness, his face, is superimposed on this digital body. That, to me, is the equivalent of like filmmaking, ghost writing, ghost filming, or ghost acting, whatever the case may be. And it gets even murkier when we’re talking about, like, just how much AI is now involved in the synthesizing of ideas. I mean, dude, straight up, straight up. I’m just gonna say this out there, chat GPT is a co writer, like 100% chat GPT, and I go back and forth on a daily basis. I’m always running things by chat GPT. I’m like, Hey, read this. Help me edit this for grammar, syntax and spelling. You know, how would you improve this? You know, these are my my sort of brand values. This is my voice. It’s eloquent, it’s elaborate, so on and so forth. Is this falling short of me? And it’s, you know, it’s like a nice sparring partner. But do I acknowledge chat GPT in my writing? Do I give it co writing credits? Do I add it to my LinkedIn posts? It’s all kind of murky for me, dude, but I like that where we’re arriving is, if there is some intent to deceive, and that has been just bringing it back to our story. That has definitely been a part of my narrative, and it’s been a part of your narrative. I have contributed to entities and to people who passed off my work as their own, and it was a knowing relationship, like I knew they were doing it, and I reluctantly gave them permission to do it. So that made me a ghostwriter, for

Herbert Lui 38:28

sure. So let’s get into it. Okay, that made you a ghostwriter. Why did you what what made you want to ghostwrite, or what made you need to ghostwrite? Ooh, man, I’m

Hamza Khan 38:43

going to keep my answers succinct here. Number one, economics, I needed the money.

Herbert Lui 38:48

It’s good money. It’s good money, very

Hamza Khan 38:50

good money. It’s very good money. If, if you get to a point where you are reliable and you have consistent work, you could be doing this for the rest of your life. People are making ridiculous amounts of money ghost writing right now. And it’s not just writing for other, you know, authors. It’s not just writing for other speechwriters. It’s just, uh, you know, it’s essentially copywriting without credit. So number one was economics. Number two, closely related, was, I didn’t feel like I had any business being the face, being the brand, being the artist. I lacked the confidence. I didn’t think, right, dude, I didn’t, I didn’t. I

Herbert Lui 39:31

keep going. I

Hamza Khan 39:32

had the star power, man. I spent most of my career behind a computer helping other people. Complete nerd, complete square. Oh, it’s still surreal to me that I get to enjoy the career that I have right now. Every time I step up on stage, there’s always a moment of disassociation where I’m like, oh, whoa. Okay, hold on buddy. Like, switch gears here. Like you. You have an obligation now to dazzle, to perform, to enthrall. But I didn’t believe I had that in me. I didn’t believe. I was destined for my thought that my career, up until maybe seven years ago, was being behind the scenes, so economics, and closely related to that was a lack of confidence. What was it for you? What compelled you to be a ghostwriter?

Herbert Lui 40:13

Oh my gosh. Hold on before I get into that, that sorry was huge. That was so good. I like, I didn’t yell or anything. I was like, you know, if we released this video of me on my MacBook Air that’s super grainy, you will see I had a physical response to that. That was so dude insightful and on the nose, because it was very much the case where a person who’s ghostwriting a they might not like the attention, so okay, that’s totally fine, right? If you don’t want to put your name on something, but you might not. You might just not think you’re worthy of being more than a ghostwriter, and worthy of being in front of the scene, right? Worthy of stepping up. You might not think you can handle the pressure. There’s all sorts of reasons and and I think that that resonated with me so much. And I think if you know, if you’re listening, I’m not talking to you the listener. You know, if you’re listening to me, you’re listening to Hamza talk about ghost writing and stepping up and really like feeling like you deserve it, like you do. You know, if you’ve been ghost writing for people, and you’re like, I want out of this. I really think I’m ready to to be the client. I’m ready to write for myself. I’m ready to put my own name on it. 100% you should do it. You should do it in as small a way as you can. If you just have, you know, five minutes a day to get started. Do it, because it’s totally you deserve it. And when you start doing it, then you also start realizing that you do deserve it, and you’re capable of it, and you very much can. And so to get into my answer, kind of, you know, I very much related to the the first part the economics was very much, you know, oh, I came out of school and I couldn’t believe how much money there was in ghost writing and how clear the business need was as well. I thought it was a really good, great way for me to meet new people, for me to also learn about the industry of technology. I pretty much only ghost wrote for for tech entrepreneurs or leaders or managers or things like that. So it’s, it was a way for me to add value to an industry that I was still very much learning how to navigate and, like, very modestly, trying to, you know, earn my stripes, right? I was like, Hey, this is all new to me. I’m still super young. I have this skill that’s modestly seems to be that modestly seems to be valuable to a marketing org or a communications org. Let’s, let’s try to, let’s try to learn tech, and let’s try to build a business off of this thing. And let’s try to, let’s try to make some money, right? It’s good business. And so that was very much what drew me into ghost writing. I think I basically used ghost writing to cross subsidize all of my non ghostwriting, like all of the writing for me, because writing as a journalist or as a blogger, or anything like that. Like I worked as a staff writer at Lifehacker in the mid 2010s just before the whole Gawker lawsuit happened. Wow. And man. The It was insane trying to make it as a ghost as a regular non ghost writer at the time, I had my name on all the articles, but the, you know, I had to write like, three posts a day, and then I had to write like, two longer, 1000 word posts every week, thumbs up. I did not want my name on those articles. This is the funny aspect of of writing. I, like, you know, life hacker wrote about every single idea under the moon already and and so all of my pitches were getting rejected. Oh, we already covered a related thing, and so all of these obscure ideas that I had to pitch were like the ones I got accepted. I’ve written about, you know, about things that I just don’t want to be it’s not it’s nothing unscrupulous. It’s just like I would write my biggest banger for life hacker was a post about how to remove your earwax. And to this day, don’t use Q tips. By the way, do not use Q tips. Mineral oil. I interviewed a doctor. They’re like, mineral oil and and to this day, that’s like, my biggest banger post for life. Hacker, like, my editors couldn’t believe it. They’re like, Oh my gosh. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Am I gonna die that earwax guy, like, I can’t this. Can’t be this. Can’t be it.

Hamza Khan 44:39

Are you credited for this post? By the way, I am credited for unfortunately. Okay, so wait, so you didn’t ghost, you didn’t ghost write this like, No, but I’m trying to

Herbert Lui 44:47

I was a writer there, but I think my point of I was trying to emphasize, and I got lost along the way, was the money was horrible, and the output you needed to do was so high. And so I. Like, Wait, ghost writing, you can do one article and make maybe, like, a whole week’s worth of money, like, no exaggeration, if you worked in media. And so to me, I was like, this is a no brainer. I should definitely, you know, I studied business, but it doesn’t take a business degree to know, hey, this is, like, a much more lucrative opportunity. And, and so, yeah, man, it was, it was, that was why and how I, I stayed in ghost writing for a long time as well. And why, some, if you’re listening to this, it’s actually a reason, I think that you might want to consider, you might want, you might find yourself in a position where you want to consider it, because it’s a really good business opportunity, but it’s just emotionally challenging.

Hamza Khan 45:45

It there’s definitely the emotions become more challenging as you start to realize that, as you start to step into your power, I should say yeah, because there is something liberating, and you just remind me of another reason why I stayed in ghostwriting for as long as I did. Once you develop competency in ghostwriting, you find that it’s actually quite easy and it’s liberating too. Like, I have no problem. I can like, dude, if I had to ghost write for you, my productivity would be insane. I’d be able to generate posts all day, every day, like, while I’m while I’m cooking, I could be just, like, literally cooking, and then, like, also just be dictating some words for you, because the stakes aren’t high. I’m not attaching it to my name, and I know that my standards, I mean, you’re a bad example. Because, dude, if I had to ghost write for you, I would actually, like, take that super seriously. But if I had to ghost write for like, let me just pick some some let’s pick Mayor Eric Adams, right. You know, no disrespect to Mayor Eric Adams, but I don’t think the, I don’t think the New Yorkers are expecting, you know, author level eloquence from him. So I would have no problem writing scripts for Mayor Eric Adams, although an argument should be made that they should hire us. Eric Adams office should hire us to write for him, because some of his stuff is just like, man, you could really benefit from some writing it, for sure. But the point is, like, the stakes are a lot lower, but now when it comes to writing my own stuff, man, I I have been so slow to get this next two book projects off the ground, because I will write a draft and I’ll be like, I’m writing, I’m like, writing two books simultaneously, and I’m just like, oh, man, this is not good. And so, like, You’ve encouraged me to think about this. Like, if I had to ghost write for Hamza Khan, how would I do that? I love that. Maybe that might be an easier way for me to start just flowing a little bit, you know, more fluidly with with the writing process. But, yeah, like, Why? Why is it so easy for me to ghost write for somebody else, but so hard for me to write for myself? It’s just because there’s the stakes are higher. I have to present these ideas as my own, and I have to stand on them. I have to live, you know, I have to live with them. And so, you know, I don’t know where I’m going with this, but, but thank you for reminding me that, like, in addition to the economics and the insecurity. There’s also this element of ease that comes into ghost writing. It can be easy, it can be very lucrative, but you can get trapped in that. Because if you’re thinking about ghost writing using the definition that we’ve advanced in this show, it is subcontracting into obscurity. Because the obscurity is the big part of this. You are relegated to a non credited person. You are a ghost. You are a non entity. You don’t exist. But when you step into your power, once you, once you start to once you start to write, and you you’re like, Hey, man, I’m good at this. And you start to become aware that if you can write, you can also speak. If you can write, you can also teach. If you can write, you can also build. I mean, writing is the first step towards creation. It is, it is a spontaneous act. Putting something out of your brain onto paper or onto a blank page is a spiritual act. I don’t care what anyone says. I’m telling you as a writer, anytime I write anything, it is a spiritual act, because I’m generating something material from an immaterial plane. I’m pulling something from the friggin ether. I was going to drop an F bomb, and I’m like, let’s not do that for our first not an episode. One, not an episode one, man, we got to get through the apple gatekeepers, right? But that’s, that’s what I mean. Like, anytime you write Herbert, it, it, the word did not exist until you wrote it. It’s Immaculate Conception. And so once you become aware of your power as a writer, then you are now flirting with the idea constantly that maybe you should be the one presenting the ideas and not the person that you’re ghostwriting for.

Herbert Lui 49:36

Dude, 100% man. And when you were talking just now, it reminded this phrase came to mind when you’re ghost writing. You’re not getting paid to write. You’re getting paid to be a ghost. You know what I’m saying? You’re really it hurt because you’re getting paid the premium is not because you’re a great writer. The premium is. Is you’re getting paid to not get recognized for your writing. You’re getting paid for somebody else to reckon to get recognized. I actually do like that. Dot that switch just totally flipped for me when you were talking about that. I don’t know why, but like, like, this is the collaborative process, by the way. Holy mackerel. Like, I’m like that. I think that, for me was the really big insight that I got from that. And if you’re so here’s the thing, and I think here’s how you can tell if ghost writing is a good like permanent career fit for you, or if it’s just a temporary thing, if you are okay with with loving writing and with not getting recognized like you don’t like the attention, you don’t want the accountability, you don’t want the heat. This is a great role for you. If you do want to get recognized for your work and you want to take credit for it, I think that ghost writing is a temporary thing for you, and you got to be willing to step up into the next stage of the career, which is becoming the talent, becoming the person who is being ghost written for, and you are ghostwriting for yourself, or maybe eventually you hire your own ghost writers. So, yeah, man, that was that really, like clicked for me just now.

Hamza Khan 51:18

Yeah, man, dude, when you, when you said that, like you’re not you’re not getting paid, you’re getting paid a premium, not for your words, but to remain a ghost that actually like it. I my stomach went into knots because I’m like, Ah, dude, I I made some really at the time, they were very smart decisions. But in hindsight, I’m like, I’m disappointed in myself for for accepting that deal. Like I’m actually disappointed that a younger, more vulnerable and insecure version of Hamza said yes to ghost writing for people that are out there right now, at the time of this recording, passing off my ideas as their own. And it hurts me every time I see it. Oh, the pain has diminished to the point where it doesn’t register nearly as sharply as it did, but the pain is still there. Like, I’m like, there’s people out there right now who they don’t I think just to say that they have the career that I want is not true, because I have the career that I want right now, but they have certain angles on ideas that are so uniquely mine. And what did I do that for? I did that for $6,000 $6,000 like it wasn’t worth it, man, because they have been able to flip that $6,000 exchange into millions. I’m not even kidding. Millions of dollars have been generated from that one idea that was purchased at a fire sale for 6000 but now I’m I’m thinking out loud, sorry, dude, it’s like, yeah, is it? There’s a way to integrate this, right? So a good example is on Season One of ideas into action, which, by the way, you were part of season one, and season two, which is crazy, and season three, you’re gonna, oh, I would love to let me send the age signal. It’s gonna be a studio and everything. We’re going back to basics. But yeah, one of the guests that I had was Pollyanna Reed, and Pollyanna Reid’s identity. And shout out to Pollyanna. She acknowledges upfront part of her branding, her presentation to the world is that she is a ghostwriter to executives. She writes books and press releases and speeches for executives, and she’ll never tell you who they are, but the fact that, like she can walk both worlds, she’s a personality in and of herself. She is the talent by day and a ghostwriter by night. And that’s really interesting, because I have it in me, even though I’m feeling this visceral reaction, I have it in me to still shut down the operation of Hamza and go back into that world, if need be. I don’t want to go back into that world, but I know I have that hip pocket skill if, God forbid, for whatever reason, I decide I don’t want to be talent anymore. I don’t want to write my own books, I don’t want to speak I don’t want to be on shows and whatnot. I just want to be obscure, live on a little vineyard in Italy and just go strike for the rest of my life. I think I could do it. I really think I have that in me. I would have to flick a lot of switches. I would have to tell myself a lot of different things in order to accept that, but I know I have the ability to do it, and I would be really good at it too.

Herbert Lui 54:09

Yeah, so would you do I think so. Man, I wonder if one way to think about that too, you said you’ve ghost room for people. They’ve turned those ideas into millions. And to me, I wonder if that’s helped, actually bolster your confidence a lot, because, you know, hey, I was a source for this idea. So now it’s just a matter of like, I know my ideas are good, I just need to do the business side of things, and I need to present them in a way that can, that I can flip this into the million dollar opportunity. And you would not have known that without ghostwriting, right? I think that there would always kind of be a bit of a mystery there, but you have evidence now that’s like, Hey, this is I’m capable of something like this. If I did this for them, I got another like, you know. Know, three, 510, years experience. There’s no way these ideas are getting worse. They’re getting better. So you can totally do it,

Hamza Khan 55:06

dude. And speaking of history, like there’s mystery in the history, the weekend will never come out and say it, but he alludes to it all the time that he ghost wrote for Drake, for sure, magic, Jordan will never admit it, but they I think it’s pretty clear. Like you listen to magic Jordan stuff, and if you understand you know lyrics, if you understand sentence structure, if you understand writing, the way that Herbert and I understand it, it’s pretty clear. Like, if you a gun to my head has has magic Jordan, ghost written for Drake, has the weekend ghost written for Drake, gun to my head, yes. 100% gonna say yes, right. 100% and they arrived at, and let’s not use magic Jordan, because they’re still signed to ovo the weekend, arrived at that conclusion. He’s like, Hey, man, like this guy, this guy has my career. I can be this person. If the only thing that’s separating us is the X Factor. It’s, you know, the confidence to stand on stage. I should do this. I should do this myself. And so maybe Quentin Miller arrived at that conclusion when they were working on, if you’re reading this, it’s too late, because I think, like, six of the best tracks on that album were apparently ghostwritten, and they’re changing, you know, they’re retconning that whole, that whole production process, to say he was a co writer. But, like, it’s pretty evident that he was a ghostwriter there, especially when you listen to the sample tracks. What tracks, why didn’t Quentin Miller step up and say, in the same way that the weekend did, that I can be this person? Because if you like this album for the lyrics, if you like this album for the raw aggression that Drake is communicating, but are clearly words that I have written, why can’t I pass them off as my own? And I think that’s the calculus that every ghostwriter has to make. That’s the the precipice that you arrive at as a ghostwriter. To your point Herbert, is if some if I can do this, and all the other person is doing is just reciting and presenting my words, that’s a small chasm to cross. Honestly, I’m telling you, as somebody who has made that transition from writing into speaking, the transition was as simple as this, speak, bang. That’s literally the only difference between a ghostwriter and a presenter. Of the idea is speak, that’s it, right? That’s all you have to do. All you literally have to do as a ghostwriter is just speak and now say you’re not a ghostwriter anymore.

Herbert Lui 57:21

Hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. That’s super interesting. I think that, you know, this is, I would love to take the discussion there. I mean, in this, in this segment. And by the way, this podcast did have segments. In case you’re listening to this, you’re like, Whoa. Where’s this going? We didn’t, we didn’t announce it, but we have segments, and I think in this segment, you know, you’re talking about speaking, and you’re talking about a bit about taking risk on too, right? Because, because you’re not the Ghoster anymore, you’re like the person you know you you don’t get paid to write this stuff. You get paid for selling it, right? So, and if you don’t sell, you don’t make money. So even if you wrote something great, if you can’t sell it, it’s not working. So you’re talking about, look, the simple switch is this, which is, speak, I would love to get a little more fidelity or color into what that journey looks like for you. Why don’t you talk to someone who’s listening to this? They’re like, look, I’m considering ghost writing, but I would love to skip that. And I would love to skip that. And I would just love to go straight into speaking, because I know you, and I’ve I’m, like, familiar with the journey and this, the strategic shift is simple, which is speak, but the tactical shift, there’s a lot of tactical shifts you had to make, and a lot of you know, a lot of work you put in. I don’t want the listener, if you’re listening this, I don’t want you to think that Hamza, just like just like, magically appeared from the ether, like, as this dazzling speaker you see before you’re doing keynotes to the fortune five hundreds and this tailored suits. You know, this guy really put in the work. You know what I’m saying. So Hamza, why don’t you, you know? Why don’t you let let the listener know, like, hey, like, you know what was, what did that journey look like when you’re like, okay, cool. I’m gonna transition out of ghost writing into speaking, and then I can do the same after as well. Yeah,

Hamza Khan 59:09

dude. And thank you for that, man. Like, it’ll come as no surprise to people who know us, like, I’m a huge fan of Herbert ley like, and I remain that I tell Billy all the time, like, You’re my favorite writer, dude. And so like to get that compliment from you is is truly special. I aspire to your level of synthesizing of complex ideas and the presentation of ideas with such conciseness and brevity, man, it’s, it’s, it’s truly a gift that you have. And so thank you for that, it’s real honor. I wanted to start this off by just like flexing a little bit like, dude,

Herbert Lui 59:48

let’s not get flex. Man, humble now, dude,

Hamza Khan 59:52

the pen game is strong. Like, please don’t get twisted, man. Like, all of this could disappear tomorrow. I could lose any. Everything, as a speaker, as an entrepreneur, as an educator, but the thing that you cannot take away from me is that when I commit pen to paper, I’m nice, and I know I’m nice, like, Dude, I can put together a phenomenal sentence. And so here’s the thing, if I had to reverse engineer that it started off by just loving the craft of writing and then developing that. Like I started off as a writer because I was a good writer. I was a good thinker because I was a good thinker. I was a good creator, a good doer. And so like, imagine that sort of like foundation being built, starting with starting with writing, then going into thinking, then going into creating. So write, think, create. And I began my career as a creator, as a creative working behind the scenes, managing creative teams, managing creative projects, producing things for other people, designs, videos, websites, so on and so forth. Eventually, I became the orchestrator of that. I started to pull together all of these different creative outputs and lead people and lead organizations to do this en masse. What that then resulted in is competence, and with enough competence, you generate confidence. So here’s the thing, dude, let ’em cook. I have competence because I am a builder. I’m a creator. I do things myself. And so the competence lends itself to confidence. And what the spark was that led to speaking was other people recognizing that there was competence and wanting to know how I did something. Thus begins the journey that brought Herbert and I into each other’s orbit. We are actionable writers. We are able to synthesize insights into actions and teach people how to do things. You literally taught people the best way to get rid of earwax. I mean, like, that’s that dude, you know what I mean. So we never bring up the earwax ever again. It is that it is now part of the materialist universe I dropped

Herbert Lui 1:01:57

in the first episode. It’s my old fault. Really listen, man, look, the book’s

Hamza Khan 1:02:01

right behind me. Man, Musashi, right? If you know the way broadly, you will see it in all things, how you do one thing is how you do all things. I imagine that if I were to look at that post that you wrote, which I’m gonna find right after this, I will be able to reverse engineer the exact same structure that’s in creative doing. Like, I’m sure it’s the same thing over and over again. But sorry, let me just share the process real quick. I went from being asked, How did I do something, to then teaching people how to do that thing. But because I had such deep confidence, I could teach people how to do it in the most granular way, and I think that is what they came to appreciate. And it started off by me doing a two minute presentation where I just, like, held a piece of paper in front of my face that I had written instructions on, and I read that to people just like that. I’m like, so if you want to create a good campaign on Twitter, here are the steps you should take. That’s how my career in speaking started. And then my boss was like, hey, the next time you do this, no paper. Okay, the next time you do this, instead of two minutes, four minutes, next time you do this, instead of five people in a room, there’s going to be an entire department of 10 people. There has just been such a gradual build up to the speaking career that I enjoy today. And I’m so glad you said that, because I’m about to embark on this crazy speaking schedule over the next couple of months, and I’m overwhelmed, because some of these stages are huge, some of these clients, I can’t even believe that I have them, and I am now getting caught up in my own anxieties and insecurities and fears about this process. But thank you for this conversation. It’s coming at the perfect time where I have to remember that no matter what, the thing that people can’t take away from me is that I actually know what I’m talking about. I’m not passing off other people’s ideas as my own. These are my ideas. I wrote them and I wrote them based on experiences that I have, and so this is just such a natural extension of this journey. Man, I thank you for giving me a chance to really, you know, make those connections. I love

Herbert Lui 1:04:00

that. Man, I

Hamza Khan 1:04:00

materialized. Dude, I materialized. The ghost just showed up. Man, that’s so cool. You know what? F**k it. I’m just dropping an F bomb over there. Thank you. Man, like this, this, this, this episode. Wow, I have full, full body shivers here. That’s how you know that this is slapping right now.

Herbert Lui 1:04:19

Yeah, it’s a good episode.

Hamza Khan 1:04:22

It’s happening for me in real time. So like materialist, just listen for a second before recording this, I was extremely scared of the week that I have ahead of me where it’s like three massive keynotes and honest, honest to God, right before logging on here, I was like, I don’t know if I’m if I deserve this career. I don’t know if I’m worthy of being in front of these audiences. Why would they pick me? One of these clients is one of the big five banks in Canada. What could I possibly teach a bunch of leaders? But dude, thank you. This this creative jam session over here, I’m telling you, in real time, reminded me that I. When I go up there and when I’m speaking to them, I’m not passing off other people’s ideas. I’m passing off my own ideas, and I know they work. I just have to travel down that path and just remind myself that, like, Dude, you built this, you did this, you worked with other people, you collaborated, but ultimately, you know how to do this. Like if somebody sat you down and quizzed you on the logic and the efficacy of your ideas, you’d be able to reverse and engineer it with precision back down to their component parts. Damn Herbert. Man, in addition to, in addition to ghostwriting, consider, consider executive coaching.

Herbert Lui 1:05:40

I just might, man. I mean, I love it. I think that, like, thank you. I appreciate, I appreciate all that. I think I’m so glad to hear it. First of all, it’s very related. I’ll take a side note real quick, which is one of these exercises I’m going to put into my next book. And I researched it and found it from a book called The Confident mind. So no no ghosting here, no deception, okay, the confident mind. But the idea is, take an inventory of your top 10 memories in a certain in a specific kind of domain. So in this case, if you’re like feeling nervous before the speaking, you just come up with your top 10 speeches of all time, which you have a great body of work to draw from, right? So there’s no and there’s no problem in drawing from that, and now you have this list where every time you experience the doubt, you can quickly pull the list down and be, oh, yeah, like, I did this stuff before, and it’s just so easy to forget. You know, for me, it could be if I’m applying to marketing jobs or if I’m gonna start a new business, like, there’s, there’s different things I would put on each of these lists. But the ultimate thing I think to remember is, hey, you’ve done something like this before. And by the way, even if it’s not, even if it’s something new, even if, let’s say I’m building an app or something, I would be like, Well, I’ve done 10 things that were like this before. So I can, here’s how I can transfer those skills and memories and experiences into this new thing. And that’s definitely going into the new book that I’m writing. But for me, I think that’s really, it’s like a really powerful thing that you can call upon. It’s like a nice artifact that, you know, in case we don’t get to jam, which we will, but, you know, you can just quickly pull it out of your pocket and go, Oh yeah, okay, cool. I’m good, you know, like I forgot who I was for a second, and now I remember who I am.

Hamza Khan 1:07:19

This is such a timely reminder for me, because there’s a body of work. And the whole thing about the body of work, to use a term that you used just a couple moments ago, it’s a series of artifacts. That’s what it is. These things exist. They’re real. They have materialized. They have come from the ether, and they now exist in a way that is accessible. And for creatives who might not have their work, living on a Spotify, for instance, or living on a website, I think this exercise that you just described that’s going to make its way into your new book, Herbert, is a very effective one. It’s to just write down 25 other instances of a thing, and why 25 that’s a very, very specific number. I’m very curious to know based on the book that you read in your own thinking. Why? Why that many like? Why not 2426

Herbert Lui 1:08:09

Yeah, the number was 1025. Is good too, if you got, if you got a big body, but I think 10 is perfect. Could even be less, could be five, could be three. I don’t think the magic is in the number, but I do think the magic is in there’s this saying in creative work that I don’t really like, but I kind of accepted before, which is, you’re only as good as your last piece of work, yeah. So maybe in sales, it’s like you’re only as good as your last sale, or, you know, in writing, you’re only as good as your last article or your last campaign or whatever, right? And I don’t believe that anymore. I just think that nice. So I think that more and more, you’re way bigger than that. First of all, you’re not you’re not even you and your work are two different things. First of all, right, every person in their work are two different things. And second of all, we’re all constantly showing up, and we like to pretend that, hey, we can control the results of how this thing is going to turn out. But more often than not, I think if we’re being honest with ourselves, there’s just so much that’s out of our control that we can control what we put into it. We can control showing up and how we show up and being prepared, and how we treat each other. What we cannot control necessarily, is how the thing turns out, and that’s totally okay, because sometimes it’s going to turn out great. Sometimes it’s going to be a great thing that that doesn’t turn out so great, meaning a great thing that just doesn’t fit the right opportunity, or a great thing that just missed the timing a little bit, or a great thing that the client just didn’t really like or doesn’t need for their particular problem, and that’s totally okay too, because you know you need to be as a as a person, professionally creating, professionally speaking, professionally writing, professionally ghost writing, who knows you need to be able to keep coming back and getting back up and putting your. Self out on like, out, exposing yourself to risk again, basically exposing yourself to the fact that, hey, this might not work. That’s where the most interesting things are anyway, you know? So I think that’s where, that’s where having an inventory of those top 10 memories comes in. Is like, Hey, I’ve made good stuff before. Yeah, I’m gonna make some bad stuff. That’s okay, yeah, but let’s just keep reminding myself. Reminding myself of the good stuff, because the bad stuff always somehow has a way of staying up here and kind of like haunting us. I don’t know if it’s because we’re Virgos, but it’s like a top the top 10 good things you’ve done is always a nice reminder, dude. Wow,

Hamza Khan 1:10:35

you, you have cleared some cobwebs here, not just for the speaking, but just for overall creative output, even specific to this pod, right? So as we’re recording this, I can’t help it. It’s just the way my mind works. There’s like, a simultaneous track that’s like, second guessing everything I’m saying, every micro expression, and it’s just the imposter is just like, on my back, gnawing at my ear, being like, hey man. Like, wrap up this point faster. Or like, say this, or like, you know, transition here, transition there. But the truth is, even if this episode is really when, when this episode is released, and let’s say we only have like, one listener, one download, the key is to just continue, keep on producing more 100% and we should definitely talk about this in future installments, like some of the some of the greatest artists of all time. Perfect example, Pablo Picasso, right? So much of his work was critically panned at the time of its release, people were saying all the time, oh, he’s fell off. He’s lost his touch. Blah, blah, blah. Here we are posthumously. All his work is just continuously, only appreciating in value. Another example is Stanley Kubrick, right? When 2000 Won A Space Odyssey dropped critically and commercially panned. Now consider probably the greatest movie of all time, depending on who you ask, but it’s definitely up there on the AFI top 100 list. It’s in most people’s top 10, so on and so forth. We have to just continue to remain tenacious and develop the body of work and develop the data and the competency simultaneously necessary to look back at those artifacts and say, Hey, this is what’s doing. Well, we know we can do this. Here’s how we can iterate and pivot so on and so forth. And I don’t know why. I mean, I’ll unpack that over time, but I am becoming increasingly aware that I have been insecure about my own speaking because maybe I have not been approaching it with the same intentionality as I do with my writing. I’m always in a state of awe and gratitude and wonder when it comes to speaking, but I think it would, it would benefit me to actually give it the same intensity that I give writing, and actually do the exercise that you just described, and actually, right after this, write down the top 10, up to 25 best speaking engagements that I’ve had, and there’s way more than 10. There’s way more than 25 and for me, what that does a number as substantial as that is a reminder that I can do it. I think it was Floyd Mayweather who said that he practices incessantly before a fight, so that by the time he steps into the ring he knows, he knows that he can do it in his sleep. He can do it subconsciously. I think he talked about like 70 sparring sessions before an actual boxing match. Oh my goodness. He’s like, because when I go into the ring, it’s like, I know I’ve done this 70 to 100 times. So like, I don’t have to, I don’t have to go through the motions of the doubt anymore, that even if I feel the doubt slightly creeping in, he just has to give himself that number and be like, No, you’ve done this 7070 times. You’ve done this 100 times. That’s so interesting, man, that’s so interesting. I

Herbert Lui 1:13:24

love that. I love that. And so for me, that might be what I would say to to now I’m, you know, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking about the ghost writing thing, let’s say maybe you’re making a career pivot. It could be really any career pivot, but let’s say you’re going from ghost writing into writing into writing or speaking or consulting of some sort, I would, I would highly, highly suggest, you know, Hamza is totally right. It’s like, hey, just, just make the shift right? The shift is simple. You’re gonna have a lot of details you have to figure out along the way. And that’s totally how it was for for me, it was for him as well. And, and so I think that just putting in that practice, securing those first three opportunities to speak Hamza, you said it was like a two minute presentation at like at work, right? It sounds Oh, yeah. And, and so something as big as hum as your speaking career could come out of a very modest, small start. I think it’s just really important to always keep that in mind. And as you keep practicing, not only do you develop Hamza, you you called it you couldn’t even have said it better it was, you know, I mean, I couldn’t say it better than you said it.

Hamza Khan 1:14:41

Sorry, I’m just you could write it better than I could. I think it was confidence through competence, right? Like, I

Herbert Lui 1:14:45

think that’s competence exactly, and and you took the words right out my mouth. I think you build this level of competence that you can fall back on, and you have that foundation there. And then, when you got that, all it takes is just remembering it. Yeah, it’s like, just remembering it. And then you can, you know, when you remember it, then you’re like, oh yeah, that’s right, I have this to fall back on. And no matter what happens, I know that I’m good at this. And so you can keep showing up and doing that and and so it’s just finding those first few opportunities. And, like, really, you know, prioritization, like, it’s not prioritizing until it hurts and you got to give some other stuff up, yeah. But once you get those first three, first five, first 10 opportunities, you’re really well on your way. And then you just got to keep doing it and telling people that you’ve been doing it, yeah? And then cool things are going to start happening. Dude,

Hamza Khan 1:15:35

that is beautiful. You’re helping me to, like, visualize the world of work in a totally different way now, like, I’m now seeing anybody who is good at anything as just one or up to three steps away from doing this in a totally different way. Like, if you’re listening to this right now, and you are a competent Junior accountant, and you’re able to put together a, you know, I don’t know, like, I’m thinking about all the outputs that my account has put together for me. You know, you file, you file taxes, and you know, you can, you can get this done in in an hour for a client. I mean, if you can do this yourself, you could, you could start your own firm. I know that sounds like a stretch for some people, but it’s like, yeah, the person that you’re working for right now did exactly what you did. Like they, they were a junior accountant that was able to put together tax returns for a client, and then they pulled together other artisans and created this thing called a company. So if you’re stuck in a in an accounting position right now listening to this, like, hey, like, if you can do basic accounting, you can do advanced accounting. If you can do advanced accounting, you can run a accounting firm. If you can run an accounting firm, you could run an accounting conglomerate. I mean, like, the line that separates competence from more competence is actually very thin. It’s non existent. And so, like, I’m now visualizing this like the barrier that separates the ghost, the immaterial ghost from the material world is actually a very thin membrane. And if you are there, if you are pressing up against the edges of reality as a spirit, as a specter, just know that you can just push your hand just with a little bit more force, and you can penetrate that veil that separates the world of the invisible, relegated ghost writer, into the best selling author, into the speaker, into the CEO and founder,

Herbert Lui 1:17:31

right? For sure, and all of those things, by the way, I totally agree. It’s just that they also take practice, right? It’s like, you know, doing running a 10 person company is very different than independently managing yourself. For example, you’ve gotta, you gotta go through those reps. You gotta do like, 100,000 status meetings, you know, like, I’m not, you know, I’m, I’m definitely exaggerating. Everyone’s doing 100,000 status meetings. But, you know, doing the status meetings, recruiting, being able to let go of people when they’re not ready to, you know, when they’re not ready to work, or they’re not living up to performance, delivering the work, selling the work, selling the oh my goodness, you can deliver the work, but you got to sell it, yeah. And I think that practice and selling it, marketing it, doing all of those things, is, is when you’ll either do that, or you will find someone who helps you do that. And that kind of, actually, weirdly enough, comes full circle to the whole pencil situation. Is like, if you have to practice all that yourself, it’s going to take a while, so you want to find someone who’s practiced it themselves, and their skills are really good, and they’re really, you know, you have a really good working relationship, or some chemistry, and then there you go, right? So, but the key is to constantly keep an eye out for this talent. You have to identify maybe 100 people in order to find one good one, you know, but you’re constantly practicing your your sense of taste in talent, and also your sense of taste in who you want to work with, or how you identify skilled people who knows what they’re talking about, who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, who’s pretending to know what they’re talking about. So you know, all of that, just to say huge respect to the craft of business as well, and the craft of entrepreneurship, wow, it’s, it’s so it’s like, it’s extremely liberating. It’s also one of the most sim it sounds so simple, and you do it and you’re like, Yo, this is like, it’s, it’s difficult in the difficulty is in the all of the details, you know. And so I, I’m so this is an energizing conversation, yeah, dude, I’m really happy for it. I’m

Hamza Khan 1:19:31

just gonna put this, put this idea out there for us to explore, right? I’ve, yeah, yes, yes to everything, man, like this. This has just been so cool and perfectly timed conversation. I’ve often heard CEOs, other executives and entrepreneurs, describe business as a sport, and this idea of like business athletes. I wonder if you and I can introduce a new paradigm into the mix, which is like a business artisan, a business creative, a business artist. Um. So I think that that metaphor is more apt than an athlete. I think an athlete is just, I’m not saying that there’s not, there’s nothing creative about athletics, but I think this idea of like iteration, about conception, about about practice, I think I think there the Venn diagram overlaps, certainly. But I wonder if there’s something to explore over here with regards to treating your work, treating any collaborative process as an artist would treat their work something to think about

Herbert Lui 1:20:27

for sure. Man, that’s super interesting. I think there’s definitely it’s it’s a nice having an extra metaphor is like having an extra tool in the belt. You know, it’s always nice to be able to shift perspectives and to know when to apply which perspective, and I do love developing that perspective and that metaphor a little more with you. That’d be cool, like we can do that in the next episode. We can do that in one down the line, but I think that’s you know, you’re gonna hear it here. If you’re listening to this, you’re gonna hear it here first. You’re gonna hear us developing in real time. I I’m so curious to listen to this and like, hear how we started at the beginning. I feel like we really found our groove somewhere. Like, you know, it depends how we edit this for if you’re listening to this, but you know, it’s like day and night right now. I’m like, Wow. I feel like so much looser, I know, and I feel like this was we really this was a cool podcast, man, this is a really good episode. I’m excited for it. How do you feel about it? What do you

Hamza Khan 1:21:27

think Same here? Man, and I love the idea of this being an artifact. In fact, I’m tempted to not edit this heavily. I’m tempted to just put this out there in its raw form, bathroom breaks and everything, for the sole reason of showcasing to us that there is a gradual progression, that we will be able to look at Episode 100 and do a comparison and contrast, and it will just validate our ideas about the creative process. And I think it’ll be beautiful to see that our philosophies with regards to writing and speaking are also true for creating a media product, if you will. But I think it’ll also be liberating for the audience too. It’ll give it’ll give materialists access to the creative process, to see two creatives who pride themselves on polished output engaging with something so raw, so discompopulated. I think we’re going to give people, hopefully, permission to just push through that membrane, to push through that veil a little bit and know that the line that separates idea into action, Idea Into You know, I just had to sneak it in there.

Herbert Lui 1:22:35

Of course, very free coming soon. That’s

Hamza Khan 1:22:38

it. It’s a very thin line, because and thank you for bringing this into perspective, man, I don’t celebrate this enough. How did this career journey start that I’m on right now with speaking, somebody asked me to teach four people how to do something. That’s how this started. And I have taken that call to action, and I’ve stretched into this, and the way that you have, for all of your your multifarious portfolio of work, and mine as well. So this is, this has been a really cool reflection, man. I I think we have now a moral obligation to see this show to its logical conclusion, to actually stretch this and see how far it can go. And I’m confident that, like, the groove that we were able to hit maybe about like 15 to 20 minutes into this pod, we’re gonna be able to access it a lot quicker. And I think we’ll be a lot more structured, a lot more precise, and this is gonna go where it’s gonna go, dude,

Herbert Lui 1:23:36

yeah, man, oh, love that. Let’s close on that, man, I think that this was, this was a great episode if you’re listening to this. Thank you for listening. Hey, we are. We are so excited to kick this off, and it’s only gonna get better, although I’m really happy with this one, too. Hamza, any final words, any closing thoughts, anything else you want to add?

Hamza Khan 1:23:58

Yeah, we use the phrase a lot in this pod, like if you’re listening to this, and I think that, given that we’ve touched on the Drake Quentin Miller situation, let me just add some words of confidence to you that very own theme if you’re listening to this, it’s not too late.

Herbert Lui 1:24:12

Ooh. Love that. Love that. Here we go. New material. Episode One. You heard it first, catch you next time. Please stay tuned. Thank you for listening as always, and have a super great day. Take care.