The Journey of Becoming
For much of life, becoming happens quietly.
We move from one place to another, take on new responsibilities, meet people who shape us, raise families, build careers, experience loss and joy, make mistakes, learn, and keep walking. Only later do we sometimes look back and recognize that what seemed like separate chapters were shaping the same person all along.
My own journey has crossed countries, cultures, professions, and seasons of life. I was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian father from Qalqilya and a Syrian mother, spent parts of my childhood in Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait, and came to the United States at eighteen. West Virginia became home.
For thirty-five years, much of my life was shaped by the professional world and the responsibilities of leadership. But some of the most important lessons did not come from conference rooms or titles. They came from family and friendship, from faith and community, from conversations with young people, from sitting with the Qur’an, and from the ordinary moments that have a way of teaching us when we are willing to notice them.
Over time, those experiences began to converge.
Leadership became less about position and more about character. Faith became less about what we say we believe and more about what that belief is forming within us. Writing became a way of preserving conversations, questions, memories, and lessons that might otherwise disappear.
Retirement did not feel like the end of that journey. It created space to listen to it more carefully.
That space became 35N.
Today, that work finds expression through writing, teaching, speaking, Qur’anic reflection, community engagement, leadership conversations, and selective advisory work. They may look like different things, but to me they belong to the same journey.
I am especially drawn to the conversation between timeless Qur’anic wisdom and the questions we face today, and to what that conversation can teach us about trust, accountability, moral clarity, character, and the way we lead ourselves and others. Sometimes the questions begin with the Qur’an. Sometimes they begin with leadership. And sometimes they begin simply with life, with family, relationships, conversations, places, and the people and experiences that quietly shape us.
I do not write or teach as someone who claims to have arrived. I approach this work as a father, a writer, a teacher, a student of life, and a student of leadership, continuing to learn through faith, family, friendship, service, reflection, and the people I encounter along the way.
Whether through writing, teaching, conversation, or leadership, I keep returning to questions that have followed me for much of my life:
What shapes us? What holds us steady when life applies pressure? What are we passing to those who come after us? And perhaps most importantly, who are we becoming, and what is guiding us there?
I live in West Virginia with my family, where fatherhood, community, teaching, and everyday life continue to shape both my work and my writing.
There is still road ahead.
And perhaps that is the point.
The work of becoming is never really finished.
Always North.
Conversations & Community
Not every meaningful idea belongs on a page.
Some are discovered around a table, in a classroom, during a retreat, after a talk, or in the kind of conversation where people feel free to ask what they are really thinking.
For years, I have been grateful to share those spaces with young people, community groups, students, faith communities, and leaders. Sometimes the conversation begins with the Qur’an. Sometimes with leadership, character, relationships, or the questions people are carrying into the room.
The goal is rarely to arrive with all the answers. It is to create space for thoughtful questions, honest conversation, and reflection that continues long after the gathering ends.
Because ideas matter.
But something different happens when ideas become conversations, and conversations become relationships.
Continue the Conversation
For professional work, leadership, writing, and ongoing reflections: