Mohamed Hammoud, Leadership Coach, Speaker, Author

09/29/2026

We often talk about authenticity as though we should be exactly the same person in every room.

I don’t think that is quite right.

The more useful question is whether the person we are at work, at home, and in our communities is still connected by the same values and sense of self.

In this week’s Clarity, I explore what happens when adaptation becomes identity, and why leaders sometimes need to examine the selves they have learned to wear.

Just published: "The Selves We Learn to Wear".
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https://mohamed-hammoud.kit.com/posts/the-selves-we-learn-to-wer

09/11/2026

Some wonderful news this morning.

My Name Is Mohamed has received a ⭐ starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Writing this book meant returning to experiences of identity, faith, belonging, assimilation, and ultimately reclaiming a name I once felt I needed to leave behind.

To see those parts of the story received with such care means a great deal to me.

The review ends with words I’m especially grateful for:

“Poignant and deeply felt, this will stick with readers.”

My Name Is Mohamed will be published by Broadleaf Books in October.

For now, I’m simply grateful to see it beginning to find its way into the world.

09/07/2026

What would Gibran say?

I carried that question with me for years, long before I began writing The Return of the Prophet.

More than a century after Gibran sent Al-Mustafa away from Orphalese, I found myself wondering: What if he returned? What would he find? What would have become of the homeland he left behind? And what might he have to say to those who remained?

Eventually, those questions became a book.

Two days from now, I’ll read some of its words aloud at Mykonos.

September 9 | Mykonos, London

07/22/2026

07/22/2026

My parents didn’t wait for a place to belong. They built one.

When we arrived in a small town in Ontario in the late 1970s, there was no mosque for our community. No place that felt like home. So a handful of families started gathering anyway.

There were summers with trunks full of coolers and grills. Weekends in Niagara Falls, families sharing motel rooms, children piled onto cots. Over time, that handful of families became one of the earliest Shia Muslim communities in the region.

I didn’t understand what my parents were building. I was too busy trying to disappear into a version of myself that Canada might accept more easily.

Years later, I would write these words:

“Belonging means showing up as one’s full self, name intact, history honoured, faith respected.”

Looking back, I realize my parents were living those words long before I ever wrote them.

My Name Is Mohamed is, in many ways, their story too.

Preorder link in bio.

04/29/2026

The best part of my birthday wasn’t the day itself, but the day after.
hammoud surprised me with a ticket to see Michael, the Michael Jackson movie, and for a couple of hours, I wasn’t just watching a story. I was reliving pieces of my own life through the music that shaped me, now sitting beside my son who loves it just as much.

We even met a young man, Hector, dressed as Michael, who came to the film because his mother, now gone, had loved him deeply.

I’m reminded that what moves us doesn’t end with us. It carries forward, quietly, from one heart to another.

12/30/2025

This year did not ask me to sprint faster. It asked me to stand still with more honesty.

Three words kept circling back: acceptance, gratitude, presence. They became less like concepts and more like daily practices that changed how I see myself, my work, and the world.

I shifted from constant outward motion to something quieter and deeper. I pulled back from always being the extreme extrovert in the room and allowed myself to become a more reflective introvert. I spent more time taking long walks in the woods, afternoons diving into books, and more hours writing with soul and spirit. I travelled, but chose depth over display. And I kept using my voice deliberately to speak about injustice wherever I saw it, without needing attention for doing so.

Writing and publishing were part of this year. But the bigger transformation was internal: who I am when nothing needs to be performed.

These three ideas are not “soft” virtues. They map closely to what research calls the foundations of emotional intelligence: awareness, regulation, empathy, and purposeful action.

Acceptance helps regulate emotion rather than suppress it. Studies on acceptance-based emotion regulation show improved resilience and cognitive flexibility, core ingredients of emotional intelligence. In simple terms, when you stop fighting reality, you free up energy to respond wisely.

Gratitude is associated with higher well-being, better mood regulation, and stronger social bonds in numerous randomized studies. People who regularly practise gratitude tend to report fewer negative emotions and greater prosocial behaviour, both directly tied to EQ.

Presence (often cultivated through mindfulness practices) is linked in many trials to decreased emotional reactivity and improved attentional control. Presence strengthens the ability to notice what you feel before acting on it, which is the heartbeat of emotional intelligence.

In my own life, this looked practical, not mystical: noticing when I was triggered, choosing response over reflex, allowing gratitude to soften comparison, and accepting what is outside my control while taking responsibility for what is not.

Presence helped me see clearly. Gratitude helped me value deeply. Acceptance helped me act wisely.

I am not interested in promises written at midnight and forgotten by February. Instead, as 2026 approaches, I am interested in agency: acting where I truly have influence and releasing what I never controlled. I want to continue becoming healthier, more grounded, less dependent on external validation, and more rooted in self-worth that is not up for public vote.

And I am deeply grateful for what God has given and for what God has withheld. Both shaped the path.

If there is an invitation here for you, it is this:

Do not chase a louder year. Choose a truer one. Cultivate presence in your ordinary moments. Practise gratitude even when life is imperfect. Embrace acceptance so you can act with real agency where it matters.

Here’s to a year not of performance, but of becoming.

12/24/2025

Inshallah we will sing this again when we free the Jnoub from the vicious hands of the enemies 🇱🇧

11/13/2025

Sometimes clarity is born in the middle of chaos.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been in South Lebanon writing We Who Refuse To Die: Between Ashes and the Olive Tree.

It’s a strange thing to find calm amidst ongoing bombings and Israeli aggression.

Yet, in the midst of tension, that’s exactly what these days have taught me.

And even when I wake to the sound of bombs at dawn, I listen for the adhan rising in the distance, take a deep breath, perform my fajr prayer and begin again.

Each morning, I watch the sun rise over Mount Hermon in the east, the light spilling gently across the hills.

I go for my walk through the village, pick the stubborn jasmine flowers that still bloom in November, and greet neighbours who look at me and wonder, Who is this stranger among us?

On my way back home, I pluck pomegranates straight off the trees for a mid-morning snack,

Most days, I’ve taken my writing space outdoors, to sit on our veranda overlooking the mountains that cascade down toward the sea.

There, between the scent of pine and the echo of distant thunder, I write. It’s where I’ve learned that peace isn’t the absence of conflict, it’s the presence of perspective.

These moments have reminded me that patience is not passive. It’s the quiet strength to stay grounded when the ground itself shakes.

That perspective is not denial. It’s the courage to see beauty even when surrounded by fear.

And that resilience isn’t the absence of worry, but the choice to rise each day with presence, purpose, and peace.

If you’re navigating uncertainty, change, or pressure in your own life or leadership, remember: clarity doesn’t come from control, it comes from stillness.

Let’s work together to cultivate that grounded clarity—within yourself, your team, and your leadership.

→ Message me if you’re ready to lead with resilience, not reaction.

11/09/2025

No matter the season
There’s always a reason
To fall in love
With Lebanon