What I learned today!

Hi Everyone! My name is Akshay Satish and I am a Grade 10 student at Glenforest Secondary School. Today, I had the pleasure to attend the Illuminate National High School Leadership Conference with over 170 students globally. Here is my blog which strives to highlight what I learned about studying business/accounting, management, entrepreneurship and the art of investing.

A leader leads by example, not by force: Sun Tzu - The Art of War

I learned a lot from the speaker in Workshop #1, who was an employee at Brock University. I got to learn about some of the courses they offer there and how to apply for them, as well as some of the job opportunities that I can get from them. I also noticed that the university gives out scholarships for keeping high averages, which motivated me to keep my marks up

Although Workshop #2 was cut short by the fact that our speaker had to leave for an emergency, I learned that being honest, showing your personality and telling a memorable story can help you get a job

I found Workshop #3 really useful as we learned a lot about the implications of investing in real life. Tessa and Chirag really taught as a lot about the types of classes in investing, how to invest, and how to minimize risks. I also liked how they used Warren Buffett as an example. My biggest takeaway was how they highlighted the importance of investing from a young age, as investments compund exponentially over time.

The Deloitte Keynote was also really exciting, as Carmen taught us some really important criteria to check off if we wanted to become good leaders. She also used a really good example of her and her son's experience in karting.

I would consider myself an entrepreneur in the fact that I have many useful ideas which I want to implement in the real world, using this conference as a tool to figure out how I would do so. If I had $5 to start a business right now, I would probably create something like a COVID reminder app, that works based on an alarm to remind you of some things you may have forgotten to take, for example a mask or sanitizer. As I mature, I want to continue to apply the entrepreneurial mindset to any professional work I do, so as to find a better, more efficient and more lucrative way to do the work.

All in all, I am quite passionate and excited to do work in the business and investment fields, as I find them very interesting after today's conference and workshops. If I were to recommend anything to you (the reader) I would recommend learning about investing, and learning about the benefits of becoming a CPA. I would also recommend joining NHLC if you are able to!

To conclude, I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this conference and learned a lot of useful information from it!

~ Akshay Satish