NHLC Takeaways

Hi Everyone! My name is Hannah Shiohara and I am a Grade 11 student at Victoria Park Collegiate Institute. Today, I had the amazing opportunity 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 today.

"Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations." —Peter Drucker

The conference started with an opening keynote by Iliana Oris Valiene. She outlined the importance of pursuing our dreams and what we love. She herself had thought about going into several different pathways, but in the end, she got her CPA certification. Her story was very inspiring as I am still debating about what career field I want to go into. This opening keynote made me realize that I need to consider all my options and choose what I have a passion for

Next, in the CPA Pitch workshop, Alina told us a story about how she didn't let her past mistakes define her and her future. Since we're all human, we're all bound to make mistakes. However, the way Alina recovered from her mistake was eye-opening and the mindset that she developed was something that I would like to work on developing as well.

We had a second workshop with Concentra about the fundamentals of finance. In the presentation, I was able to learn about profits, investments, and how financial literacy is important. I learned about the importance of starting to invest at a young age, and would like to look into it soon.

Finally, we had a last presentation about leadership, where Carmen Wade spoke to us about the 6 life lessons she learned:

• It's not enough to think you are unbiased

• You cannot always rely on other to include you -- assert yourself

• Its okay to ask for help

• Don't make assumptions

• It takes time

• Never underestimate the value of trust

She discussed her personal stories to explain each takeaway and I was able to learn a lot about being a good leader.

I consider myself an entrepreneur as for the past 2 years in high school, since I have been taking initiative in business competitions.

I am excited to attend NHLC next year, and one piece of advice that I would give to someone about leadership is to step out of you comfort zone!