How Dr. Riyad Khamis Built a Passion-Driven, Multi-Faceted Optometry Career

In this episode of 20/Happy Careers, Dr. Riyad Khamis shares his inspiring journey to building a passion-driven career in optometry.

Discover how he reignited his passion for neuro-visual rehab and vision therapy through greater autonomy and mentorship, started a thriving vision therapy clinic from scratch, and expanded into sports vision and speaking engagements — all while maintaining balance and avoiding burnout. Dr. Khamis also offers honest insights into the early struggles, rejection, and mindset shifts that paved the way for his success.

Whether you’re feeling stuck in your profession or searching for ways to design a career that energizes you, this episode offers valuable lessons on staying true to your “why,” embracing growth, and turning small starts into meaningful impact.

Key Topics:

• Early career disillusionment and how mentorship helped Riyad rediscover his passion
• Combining general optometry, neuro-visual rehab, sports vision, and speaking
• Balancing workload with intentional breaks and a flexible schedule
• The entrepreneurial leap: growing a vision therapy clinic from one patient to nearly 100 per week
• Overcoming rejection, slow growth, and misconceptions about success

Tune in for an authentic conversation about the ups and downs of crafting a unique and meaningful career — and how you can do it too.

Transcript

Dr. Fred H. Cho 0:00

Welcome to the second episode of 20 Happy Careers with Doctors Fred and Riyad, real conversations about the imperfect path to a happy career. My name is Dr. Fred Cho, a travel optometrist and speaker on Work Happiness, and I'm joined by my co-host, Dr. Ria Chemist, a new optometrist and founder of London Vision Development Center. How are you doing today, rt?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 0:22

I'm doing well, it's, we're recording on a Friday, so it's always nice when it's a Friday and we've been having super hot weather, but getting my golf in this summer, so it's been been pretty good. So excited to kind of dive in a little bit deeper on Workplace Happiness and the 20 Happy Life as well. Um, how are you doing?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 0:41

You know what? I actually forgot that it's Friday because as you know, I have a little one right now. Just a week old. Yeah. And oh my goodness, like, yeah. Every day just kind of blends in. But uh, no, it's good. We're picking up the routine now. Things are good.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 0:54

Yeah, well I was gonna say, you look like you're not too sleep deprived, but you're handling it pretty well and then look put together, which is impressive.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 1:02

So today we're diving into your fascinating journey, but actually before we get started, I do wanna share how we met. So re and I, yes. Were classmates from University of Waterloo School of Optometry, and I remember the very first time I met you, you had this biggest smile. I remember thinking like, this guy's teeth is amazing. He always had great teeth. And so, you know, over the years, like we've shared some really great experiences, right? We went to Optometry mission trip together in Mexico. We were roommates in Alabama during our ocular disease training. That was really fun. So first and foremost, I just wanna say that you genuinely made my life better with your positivity and your friendship. So I really appreciate you.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 1:45

Okay, well, amazing. I'm kind of looking at my teeth now. I'm a little self-conscious if they're still as good as they were back then, but know I appreciate that and I echo that as well. We've spent a lot of time and, and we got to know each other really well. We were right by a river in Alabama and there were some big cockroaches and we handled that together.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 2:02

Yeah.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 2:03

Um, also we were on an alligator farm. The, uh, the river had some alligators in it as well. Yeah. But we survived that, so we could probably survive anything.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 2:11

Roll, roll, tie. Right. So I can't wait to dive into your fascinating career, but as usual, let's start with a hard hitting question, and I'm actually very interested to know your take on this. Was there a point where you didn't enjoy your work and what was the key to finding it?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 2:29

Yeah, that's a great question. So as, as you stated, we were in school for a really long time. We did undergrad, we did optometry school. I did a residency. I was fortunate enough when I left my residency to really have a good picture of where I wanted to go. And try to build that career how I wanted it to be. But going back to when I realized potentially what may or may not make me happy, it was actually an interesting story. In our fourth year, we do rotations, and I remember in my first couple years of school, I was really interested in binocular vision and neuro optometry. And basically what that is, is how the eyes work together. Uh, rehabbing the vision after concussion and sports vision, and that was something I thought, you know what, this is what's something I wanna do with my life, or I wanna be able to do when I practice. Then in fourth year I had a few rotations through the school and some, uh, people out shadowing and working where I kind of didn't love it. I just found that I was told what to do and I had to go do it. And just like in school sometimes you have to take a ton of notes and I wasn't the greatest note taker and I. I slowly decided, you know what? This actually isn't for me. I'm not enjoying this at all. I may not be doing it right. Someone told me to do it this way and I don't really understand why. So I actually went finished optometry school and I decided, you know what? I'm not gonna be doing vision therapy or NeuroVisual rehab. I'm gonna try to do low vision or something else in doing my residency. But then just as luck would have it, I ended up in a residency rotation where I could choose my career path. And I said, you know what? I don't like vision therapy. I'm not doing that. I'm gonna go with low vision. But a few months in, as I got more experience with vision therapy and got more autonomy in the sense that I was designing the plans, and now all of a sudden I had to decide, figure out what was going on with the patient and what I needed to do, it became something that I fell back in love with and I remembered why I enjoyed it so much. In my first couple years of school, I. So that's the moment where I decided this is something I wanna do for the rest of my life, and I was able to build my practice towards that. But it kind of goes to show whatever career you're in, sometimes it's not necessarily the subject matter. You may have fallen in love with that subject matter. That's why you chose that career path. But the environment that you are in or the way it was being practiced, may not be the best. So sometimes it's just a case of figuring out what works for you and still enjoying that subject matter.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 4:53

Wow. Yeah, that's a great answer. And um, I think some people when they think about burnout, they think, okay, well maybe this career is not right for me. But to your point, there's a reason why you got into it in the first place. Exactly.'cause it is about exploring different environment and trying it in different ways.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 5:12

Yeah, and that's a great point. I think if you were someone, or if. Someone or that is experiencing burnout. Sometimes it's good to go back to Why did you choose that career in the first place? Yes. And then maybe thinking, I still enjoy the matter. I still enjoy thinking about it. I enjoy the actual subject or what I'm doing, but it's maybe the environment or the way it's being practiced I don't love.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 5:32

And so was there a particular moment or feeling that triggered you to reconnect with your why and why you love vision therapy?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 5:43

I think it was my mentor, my residency supervisor was one of the heads of the vision therapy. And there was a lot of things with vision therapy by that point, or NeuroVisual Rehab. I was skeptical about it. I was like, I don't know if this works or how does this work? And she sat with me for hours and I would ask all these hard hitting questions and she would explain them and they would make sense. And all of a sudden there was a why to what we were doing and I was like, okay, this actually makes sense. I can help this person this way. By applying this concept. So really I think it was a mentorship of having that and then getting the freedom of making my own decisions, and that really triggered something where I was like, this is something I'm interested in, and that thirst for learning and it really, really kind of ignited again.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 6:27

Awesome. Now, part of what makes your career so fascinating to me is that yes, you do great work as neuro optometrists, and I would love for you to tell us a little more about that. But also there's a term called portfolio career, which means that you are doing more than one thing that you really care about. And so tell us about all the work that you do in and outta the exam room.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 6:52

Yeah, for sure. So just like when we were talking about your story as well, how trying to make your week. Different and make it interesting so that it doesn't all blend together. Similarly, my weeks are quite a bit different and what I do during the week or that month can vary quite a bit. So typically I do try to take Fridays off work and that was something I tried to do in the last year or so just to catch up on admin stuff. So I am my own boss, so I do have a lot of admin work to do and I was finding, I was doing. Work on Sundays and Saturdays and it became a seven day a week type of thing, which as you know, like that can make work less enjoyable as well. So I've tried to take Fridays off. That's been a big thing. Now, whether that's worked, sometimes that works. It ends up filling up. Today's Friday I have some stuff to do, but my weeks change, so I do regular optometry two days a week now, which is good. I enjoy it two days a week. It's good for me. I see lots of patients and I get the disease part of it. Then I do two days a week of NeuroVisual rehab. I see post-concussion patients, patients who've had eye turns, kids with reading issues and coming up with solutions on those fronts. And then I do sports vision as well. So for instance, I've really specialized in hockey goalies. Um, so I have three goalies coming in this afternoon and in different various levels, like some are. Right there at the NHL level. Some are in the junior level and some are in the younger age group, and we really work on quickness reflex reaction speed. So that would be. Outta the exam room because we go outside, we do some ball drills, we do vision things outside. So it's fun for me. I get to be out there doing it as well. And then I get to do some speaking events. Next week I'm heading to actually the University of Waterloo for with the fourth year students, and we're doing a contact lens seminar along with presentation, which I love speaking, so I get to do some of that stuff as well. So definitely a variety, which I really enjoy.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 8:49

Perfect. Yeah, and I think the variety is key to kind of sustain that energy too. Sometimes taking a step a little bit away from whatever task kind of helps you re-energize when you come back. So yeah. How do you feel

Dr. Riyad Khamis 9:02

about, I would say like in terms of your experience too, trying to take a few days off during the week? Because I know you worked for a while, it was six to seven days a week that you were working as well, right? Yes. So did you find that made a big difference?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 9:16

Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I used to work six, seven days for years until eventually burned out. I think sometimes having a busy work schedule is actually good. If you have too much time off, that's also not great. Yes, there are some psychology studies that looked at what is the ideal amount of free time and too much free time is also stressful and too little free time is also stressful and everyone has that kind of goldilock zone in the middle. Yeah. That is ideal for them and that's the reason why. Six days a week just won't work for everybody either. Right. So I would say yes, it, it definitely made a big impact on my wellbeing.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 9:55

Yes, for sure. And I think that. Sometimes we think of work as when you're actually in the office, but all the other stuff or the admin stuff, or when you're at home doing emails or catching up, you're still technically working. So needing the time off is important in terms of at least a day or two a week.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 10:12

Definitely. Now, I'm curious if there was a specific moment that triggered the shift to work outside the exam room, and specifically this is like the sports vision or the contact lenses speaking that you do on the road.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 10:27

I've always enjoyed multiple things and I, I think that was something from the beginning. I started into private practice right away and buying into a practice and just being my own boss at that point. I always thought of being able to apply all these different areas to my career, and I think that you have this vision of doing it, but it's not. An easy thing. Sometimes it's connections, right? You meet people. For instance, I was always interested in speaking and I thought maybe I could go into teaching at some point in my career. I thought it would be later on in my career, but I got an opportunity where I met one of the contact lens reps at the time, and then he ended up moving up and becoming one of the head of contact lens in Canada in that company. And I started speaking for them a a handful of years ago, and I really enjoyed it. I tried to do as good of a job as I could, and I've slowly gotten to do that more and more. So sometimes it's just about building connections. You have these plans, but you never know exactly where they're gonna go, so it's just you kind of roll with it and take the opportunities as they present.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 11:30

Yeah. I think the networking is really powerful and I wish we were taught that even more in school. Right? Yeah. These are like soft skills that are critical for your career development that we didn't really learn about, but I know you, you're always good at networking and you're always positive, so you're great at attracting other people and so, right. I can see how that played a great role in your career as well. Great

Dr. Riyad Khamis 11:54

role, and I would say networking definitely didn't. Is easy to me either though. Mm-hmm. Because as you said, it's not something we really learned. And it's different'cause when you're younger or you're in school and you're trying to network, what it really is is you trying to learn or get value from someone else. And the problem with that is that person that you're coming to also has. 50, 60 other students trying to do the same thing. So it's not really networking at that point. It's you trying to get some value from someone else and who's really, really busy. And I found that as a student, there wasn't that two-way value type of thing, if that makes sense. Whereas networking's different now. So I, so I didn't enjoy it and I was never great at it in terms of getting ahead or trying to be the one that asks a ton of questions, which is probably like a lot of people listening, right? Yeah. Like we don't love. Having to ask a bunch of questions or being that person that's like hands up first all the time. Yes. But I found now it's a little different now that we can add value to other people. Networking is so much more important because people wanna learn from you as much as you wanna learn from other people. So there's that value is, is two ways and, and now all of a sudden networking becomes a lot more engaging because you can chat about different things and attend events. Where you start to get to know people. So I found it super valuable. But yeah, as you said, it's not something that you learn in school, but it's such an important tool and, uh, especially as you further your career, you never know which opportunities will present that way as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 13:31

Oh yeah. I think that's really insightful for your students talk coming up as well. And I'm actually, I'm writing an article about, exactly about this topic, which is to have more of an outward focus. One clear example is when you try to collaborate with people, it really should be a win-win, right? Like, how do I create value for them? Too often I think we approach the situation with, what can I get out of this? But yes, but it's actually, if you flip it and think about what can I do for them? What problem can I solve for them, then that actually helps them wanna work with you more. And it's more of a right kind of genuine, right. A mutual. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Partnership for sure. And

Dr. Riyad Khamis 14:17

that's exactly it. I always thought when I graduated and as a student that I was thinking, those people that helped me out, I always wanna be that person. Mm-hmm. And I still do, but nowadays I get emails pretty constantly and it's usually from students because we're in London and Westerns right here. Asking to shadow, and every time someone comes to shadow, it's great. Like I get to meet someone, but it's also like I have to explain everything that they, they're really new to optometry, so they don't know, and they have to be in the room, so it takes up more of my time. So just because we get so many students now emailing, it's unfortunately, I, I don't end up replying to a lot of them. So, so that's, that's exactly it is if, if they can provide value or if you meet them in person somewhere. It's a lot more personal than, than just getting an email being like, can I come in this day? And shadow, I'm really interested in optometry. Right. Because those, those happen quite often now.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 15:07

Yeah, for sure. Now, just circling back to early part of your journey, if you can think back to when your career started expanding in all these other ways, can you tell us a little bit about what you were thinking at the time and if there were challenges when you were trying to branch out of the exam room? Yeah.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 15:27

For sure. I can tell you, I don't know what I was thinking. I was a big risk taker, which is I was having this conversation the other day. Mm-hmm. And, and by no means are we, are we way in our career, but I find that I'm a little bit less of a risk taker already than I was five, six years ago. The reason that this came up was, I'll kind of tell you my thoughts at the time, at second half of my residency, I was like, okay, I'm gonna start a vision therapy practice. And for those of you who don't know vision therapy, it's. Basically a referral only process. So it's not like a regular optometry where you get people calling in and saying, I wanna book an eye exam. There's a ton of people. Vision therapy really relies on people referring new patients. So when I first decided that I wanna open my clinic, we bought into a practice. The upstairs had a tiny room, like it wasn't more than 10 by 10 or maybe a little bit larger. It was basically a storage. They had stuffed everything for years into this room. We cleaned that whole thing out. I was with my parents, they were helping me at the time, and I set up the vision therapy practice in that upstairs room. We painted it. We put all these charts and got all the equipment that I brought over. Then I realized like, I don't know anyone in London. I don't know a single practitioner. I don't know anyone. How am I starting a practice with just me? Then I found out there was other vision therapy practices in London and a couple of new ones opening up. It really kind of hit me that I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing here. Like we put in all this work, I bought all this, and at the time, vision therapy equipment isn't super expensive, but when you come out of school or a residency, you don't have a ton of money, so you invest a, it seems like a lot at the time, so. I remember thinking that, and just like anything, it started out really slow. A couple months where I had one patient referred over and I would do my regular optometry practice. I would do this in the evening, and it was just me and I would just be doing the therapy myself. And then slowly one patient turned into two, which turned into four, and then my name started getting outta there, and then all of a sudden I. It was, okay, well, we're too big for this room. Let's go to another building. We bought a big building and now, yeah, fast forward five, six years and it's almost like a hundred patients a week now coming in. Oh yeah. So yeah, it's quite the journey. It's one of those things where I had a vision and I was willing to take a risk, and I never really thought it would fail, but. There's a few months where you're like, okay, this isn't really generating any revenue here. The things work out. You work hard. And I was fortunate that way.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 17:51

Well, firstly, I really appreciate that you're sharing these moments of vulnerability and like those moments where you question your choices, like, can I really do this is gonna work? Because when somebody looks at your career now as a whole, I think this guy's very successful. He's got a lot of good things going on and it's hard to relate sometimes. And, but it's Right. It's helpful to hear that. Yes. Like everybody has these moments of doubt and just, it's not always sunshine. Right. Right. Um, these times where you're not sure, and so if I can dive in a little more on those moments Yeah. What helped you get through those moments of doubt, those months of slow growth?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 18:33

Yeah. I think two things. One is I had a good, I had a good amount of time to plan, so I had. The structure and everything, how I want it to be really, uh, kind of in my head. I also had a good, other than just the mentor I talked about there, I actually shadowed a few practices while I was there and really got a good idea of how a vision therapy practice runs or how it would efficiently run because there was a really efficient clinic there and I took a ton of notes in my head. I was like, this is how it, this works. I'm gonna follow this exact structure so I don't have to make a ton. It. New decisions. I figured I could make those new decisions later, but if I follow the structure initially, then at least it takes one less variable out of the equation. So when it was slow and it was like, okay, I'm trying to build my name, I'm trying to build my practice, I still had that vision of how I wanted to eventually look and eventually run. Then the second part of it is just doing a good job, right? If you're passionate about what you're deciding to do, and I was, I was truly passionate about helping people, and I still am. I remember my first couple patients, they had brain injuries and they were really struggling. I remember my first one, actually. She came in. She's like, Dr. Camis, I've been struggling for three years. I haven't been able to work, I haven't been able to late leave my house, and I can only barely walk my dog. You're my last hope, like I'm really relying on you. And that was my first brain injury patient. And I remember coming outta that room and being like, what did I get myself into? Yeah. Um, but then we worked at it and at the time I only had a few patients, so I actually gave them my cell number as well. If I don't do that anymore, because there was times where I would get calls a lot and I became almost like a therapist. But yeah, I was really invested and she got better and that was actually my first success case is she got to the point where she got back to work. She's back to functioning. She wrote me a really, really nice letter and was like, you really helped me. This really was a huge help in kind of my recovery, and I'll never forget it. And just from that I was hooked. I was like, this is what I'm gonna be doing. And the practice organically grew through that because she would tell people or that person referring her, and slowly, it's almost that snowball effect, right? And more people hear about it and more success stories, and all of a sudden now it's a bigger thing and you're busier, which is great.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 20:49

I think the passion is important because sometimes that's really what helps you keep pushing. Even when things get really tough, you're not sure, but if you combine what I would say is like passion plus helping other people together, then that is really kind of the recipe for success, I think, and fulfillment, right? It's not just accolades. You're really aligned with your own passions and. Fulfillment from helping others, which is why optometry as a base is very rewarding. I actually was talking to a lawyer friend of mine and he said, I'm so jealous that you guys are in healthcare because in my field, if I win, the other guy loses. And if they win, it's like a zero sum game. But then for you guys, everybody wins and you're helping everyone, which I think is really interesting.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 21:43

Yeah, that is interesting and I think that one of the other things you said as well is when you're doing the same thing and maybe you're approaching burnout, your passion starts to leave a little bit. And I think people see that, right? Like patients can tell when, oh, yes, yes, their doctor's a little bit more checked out, where all of a sudden now you change a few things. You're back to being passionate about it. It really shows. I think they can tell a lot of that as well. And how engaged you are, how much you're explaining to them, all of that stuff as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 22:11

For sure, for sure. Now, RI know you're gonna enjoy this question'cause you're a big mindset guy. So what practices, habits, mindsets, help you stay grounded and align with what really matters to you?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 22:26

I think the, the positivity part of it, I've been always a positive person and naturally that comes to me is always looking on the bright side of things and always thinking of how things might work out type of things. Well, so that's always been important to me as well. Taking mental breaks I think is important as well. For me, sports is a big one, playing sports, so just even golfing. I've started to golf over the last four or five years, and one of the things I enjoy about golfing is. Golfing's such a tough sport. All you're thinking about is trying to figure out the golf course or how do I avoid the water? And all of a sudden you don't think about anything else. So you're just kind of taking a break and it's just you versus the golf course or even just any type of activity. Swimming, working out, things like that are important to, to keep me grounded I would say is really important. And then. There's times where things get tough, right? Like when staff leaves and you have to do all the day-to-day stuff. But just kind of thinking of the end goal and the big picture, like I'm a big picture guy, so thinking big picture on how you want things to be is really important, I think for me as well, and helps me stay grounded there.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 23:36

Yeah, that's great. And is there something that people sometimes misunderstand about your career or the path that you chose? I mean, I think it's easy to see, like the great things that you've done. I'm just curious if there are things that people don't understand.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 23:53

I think that just hard work, right? I think that nothing comes easy. I've never been the type of person that, even in school, some people can say, I think you were, you were pretty good, smart that way, right? You could be in class and absorb things. You don't have to always show up to class. You naturally could absorb stuff, right? I've never been that person like. The only way I get ahead is just hard work and, and for me, that's just outworking people. But yeah, there's tough times where I had one recently where we had a staff member leave and I was on vacation and I was like, oh man, I was supposed to disconnect here. Mm-hmm. And I've been doing interviews at like 2:00 AM because we were in Europe and Wow. And it was like one of those things that yeah, you don't love doing at the time, but. It ends up working out and it's something you have to do. So yeah, there's stuff that that's good, but it all requires hard work and sometimes doing stuff you don't really love all the time, but there's that end goal in mind.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 24:45

Certainly. I've done a talk for TMU. Yeah. Emily Ryon. And I know we chatted about how a lot of students just want their dream job right away without the hard work. Yes. And that's not really how things work. You have to put in the work network. You know, get new skills in order to work up to it.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 25:07

Yeah. One of the things I've learned too is, especially going into the sports part of it now, so as I've worked with professional teams, I just had a message the other day by someone being like. I really love the work you do. Can I shadow you? Can I learn all this stuff? And the thing about it is I had a lot of rejections, especially coming into the sports part of it by coaches, by teams where I would email and I remember when I first started, I emailed every single goalie coach around the area and I was like, this is what I do. And I had no responses. I probably put together 20 to 30 emails. Mm-hmm. And no one responded to me. Mm-hmm. And then all of a sudden you get one connection, same sort of thing. You do a good job, you get another connection. And all of a sudden now the London Knights, which is one of the biggest hockey organizations here in town, along with another junior team, like I'm getting in with them and I work with them, and all of a sudden now people are coming to me and asking me those questions, but. Still the fact that you really have to be okay with being rejected or someone being like, ah, I don't really, I don't really need this or, or you probably don't really gimme much value and that's okay'cause the next person might. So that's been important as well. If it happens, that's fine, keep going. But eventually you'll make a connection that actually helps you there as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 26:22

Yeah, that's certainly interesting because sometimes you just have to get through all those nos and just keep believing yourself. Yeah, I read recently that the Colonel Sanders, the KFC guy.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 26:34

Yeah.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 26:34

He went to over a thousand, I think. Uh, restaurants to try to sell his recipe. Bet. So it wasn't until over a thousand that he actually got his Yes. And now of course, it's like a national success worldwide. Oh, that,

Dr. Riyad Khamis 26:47

that's such a, a good analogy.'cause yeah. All you need is the one Yes. And all of a sudden one Yes. Leads to another Yes. Which leads to another. Yes. And now you have more credibility because you know other people. And it's that first one that you just need to get in the door and. It may be a thousand nos, but all you need is a yes. Right.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 27:05

Well, if I were him though, I would've started questioning my recipe. Like maybe it's not very good.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 27:11

Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 27:12

Now, this is a great question. I, I really want to hear your answer on this one. Uh, what does a happy career look like for you today? And has that definition changed over time?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 27:24

I think more recently. The most valuable commodity I found is time. And I remember hearing that somewhere and I thought, you know what? That's actually a good concept. The business owner, you're always trying to save costs and you're like, I'm gonna do this because it's cheaper, or this weight is more efficient. Then you get to the point where you're like, I can almost only save so much.'cause the important thing is if I can get people to help me free up my time, that's so much more valuable. And I think that's something I hopefully will transition into my career with, with being able to still keep up everything I'm doing, but adding more time into my life as well and having more time for the important things as well. But having said that, goals in the future would be, I really enjoy sports. So I think the sports side of it is a really good area, which for me, I don't really consider work. I mean, I do get compensated for it, but I think that's more of just like a fun thing that I do, and I don't even consider it like work. I love the concussion neuro side of things, so I don't see myself ever leaving that. It's nice because I get a good hour with the patients a lot of the time, and we can explain stuff we can talk about. And with the more experience I have, I can really bring that to the table in helping people. I still love optometry and optometry disease, things like that, so I would always wanna keep that going one or two days a week. So just the variety. I really like where I am at, I think. Just from a goal oriented sport standpoint, maybe continue to move up in the sports world and doing things like this, like talking with podcasts or speaking or consulting. But I do think the time part is valuable too.'cause you can only take on so much. And I think that figuring out what works in terms of keeping your time open is important as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 29:09

Yeah. So when I hear your answer, really two things come to mind. The first is that the work happiness can't exist in a vacuum. Like you have other areas of your life that are important to you. Could be relationships, could be health, self-care. So if you don't have enough time for other things, you can have a perfect job and you're still gonna be not happy. And so I love that you brought that up. The second thing is that your passions in your life seem very aligned with. So your passion for speaking, for sports vision and using your expertise to help others, so I can see that your life and work are very well integrated together. Right, which is a recipe for lasting work happiness.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 30:00

Exactly. That's perfect. And I think that from a longevity standpoint, I hope to be doing this till I'm. 80 or 90 years old if possible. So yeah, I would say for the next many years I'll be enjoying it,

Dr. Fred H. Cho 30:14

for sure. Now, I know you're a big sports guy. If you had a career highlight reel, what moment has to be in there? It could be big or small, but anything that made you go, wow, I'm really doing this.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 30:28

Definitely the first part was the one where I talked about how we were in that little small room and I was just by myself, and then all of a sudden, now we have a building in downtown London and I see patients coming in and out all the time and just being happy and enjoying it. I remember going to my first London Nights game when I moved to London and I went with a friend and again, had zero hockey connections, had anything like that, but there was 10,000 screaming fans. I was like, you know, one day I'm gonna work with this team. I remember telling him that and he's like, oh, okay. Interesting. I don't think he really took it that seriously. And then same thing in Edmonton. When we went to an Oilers game, I was like, this is really cool. I wanna work here as well. And I don't work with the Oilers, but I work with the Oil Kings and we work in the same arena at Rogers Place, and I get all the integration with them as well. So that's another moment that I'm pretty proud of. And then just over the years, the patients, right? Like the stories, the helping people, and there's the numerous ones where. They came in with not a lot of hope or struggling and being able to help them and really get their life back on track, I think creates a highlight reel on its own.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 31:30

I don't know if you remember this Riyad, but we were hanging out one time watching a hockey game and you just looked over at me and said, you know, one day I'm gonna work with the NHL team. And, uh, for the, for the listeners, Riyad does work with just below NHL. Yeah. Believes Western Hockey League,

Dr. Riyad Khamis 31:45

the Western or the Ontario hockey. Yeah. And. A really cool moment happened two days ago. I had my first goalie drafted into the NHL. Okay. So there's a goalie I've been working with for two years now, and the Vancouver Connects, took him in the second round and he was the first Ontario Hockey League goalie drafted, and he comes over and we played ping pong sometimes. Mm-hmm. So I texted him right away and I was like, oh, congratulations. And, and so it was a really cool moment and, and he's a really good kid and I think he's gonna do big things as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 32:12

So that's huge, man.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 32:14

Yeah. Wow. I can add that to the highlight reel. I think

Dr. Fred H. Cho 32:18

that's awesome. Now, if someone is feeling stuck or unfulfilled in their current role, what is the one small step that you suggest that they take? I.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 32:28

I would say go back to your goals and, and your vision. Always, no matter what you do, and no matter how stuck you are and you're in your daily routines, always have that vision in the back of your mind of where you want to be.'cause you never know when you'll make that connection or which event you'll attend, and then your vision can start to come to life. So never forget that initial vision. Whatever your passion is and whether you see your career going. In the daily grind or wherever you're at, just always have that vision in the back of your mind. And when you have free time, take those baby steps to start to try to integrate into that vision that what you want might not happen right away, might happen in four or five years, but if you have that vision, you can keep building towards that and eventually build the career that you enjoy.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 33:15

Yeah, I think that's a great advice. And ultimately it's just putting your work out there, right? Like consistency trumps everything. And if you just put in the little work day in and day out, then surely you'll get to your destination. And then I guess we can wrap up the podcast with a more of a fun question. So what is something outside of work that brings you the most joy? What brings you the most joy? Well,

Dr. Riyad Khamis 33:41

I will say a Sunday. Afternoon, 1:00 PM sitting on my couch watching football. I don't like to sit for a long time. Yeah. But I can sit for five, six hours straight. Yeah. Just, just watch football and just kind of turn off my brain. I would say I always looked forward to the Sundays. Even when I was in school, I Sunday afternoons from my time, I didn't do any work, didn't do anything. Just enjoyed. I've gotten into gardening more recently, which has been interesting. We're going some vegetables in the garden, sometimes just mm-hmm. Hand in the dirt. All of that stuff is, is fun as well. I like being outside and hiking, all that stuff. Also.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 34:17

Well, I gotta say, as long as I've known you, you've always enjoyed those Sunday football times. Yeah. Do you remember when we went to see Alabama football team?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 34:26

Yes. That was wild. The

Dr. Fred H. Cho 34:27

stadium was massive.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 34:29

Yeah, the college football, there was, I remember everything that they do in Alabama revolves around the football or Saturday football down there. So that was a lot of fun and I think that to this day, I watch Alabama and I remember fondly that, or Sweet Home, Alabama comes on and I was like, I remember those times. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 34:50

Well, this was really fun. I'm glad that we're doing this again, and I just want to thank our listeners for their time on 20 Happy Careers with Dr. Fred and Riyad. If you found this helpful, we would love for you to subscribe, share, or leave a comment. Join us next time as we rethink success and what it means to love your work.