Illuminate x Durham Wisdom Acquired From Session!

Hi everyone! My name is Zainab Kazim and I am a Grade 10 student at Dunbarton High School. Today, I had the pleasure to attend Illuminate x Durham regional conference. Here are my thoughts highlighting what I learned about Alina Huang (CEO of Illuminate) and her wonderful presentation. In the session that I attended she taught us that leadership is something that can’t be taught but rather awakened within a person with the correct guidance. This fact that Alina stated is quite an important concept for me to learn as this has allowed me to realize that in order to become a leader I need to figure out my own path with some guidance. Alina also taught me that humans have 2 ways of thinking and those are: having a sage mindset (positive and ready to tackle problems) and a saboteur mindset (miserable and annoyed by challenge). She has taught me that when I feel the saboteur mindset kicking in I should try to switch it to a sage mindset and activate my positive thinking and tell myself that any challenge I have to face will end up benefiting me in the end. I really enjoyed how she inspired me to be more positive and be grateful for all the opportunities and challenges I receive no matter how hard they are. This advice that Alina has given me will help me make sure that I continue to grow and turn any negative situation into a positive one by shifting my sour saboteur mindset into a positive sage mindset. As long as I keep this up I will be able to have more confidence in myself and be able to achieve my goals and face any challenges in order to lead myself closer to my career goals. Overall, Alina’s presentation was very helpful and I can’t wait to activate my sage mindset and use it whenever I have an assignment to tackle!