First things first – I am not taking any credit for the information provided below or details – this information was provided by Rick Spence, a writer, consultant and speaker specializing in entrepreneurship.

I read an article by Rick Spence in the Calgary Herald this month and it was interesting, but the part that got my attention was the final paragraph that listed three important lessons. Before we go there allow me to bring you up to speed on what “The Next 36” is about and how the important lessons come into play.

This article is really a story about a business maverick named Reza Satchu. According to the article, Satchu has been referred to “Toronto’s answer to Donald Trump” and his story is one of blazing your own way to success. Satchu immigrated to Canada from Kenya as a child and ended up attending Harvard Business School. Fast forward and Satchu ends up selling an online company at the peak of the dot-com boom for nearly $1 billion. As perfectly phrased by Rick Spence, he has since been paying if forward “by bringing a hard-knocks approach to the ivory tower”. For six years he has been teaching boot-camp style entrepreneurship course to undergrads at the University of Toronto.

Satchu is now one of three partners and backing from some big names in Canadian business to be launching “The Next 36” program. This program will invite 36 of the most promising of Canada’s entrepreneurial undergrads to participate in a demanding eight-month program designed to transform these 36 hopefuls into market-focused fearless leaders. Want more details go to www.thenext36.ca.

Now back to the 3 lessons. The three most important lessons according to Satchu are:

1. Seek positions of massive discomfort early in your careers. We learn best when we are out of our depth. The closer you get to breaking point, Satchu says, the stronger and more resilient you come.

2. Don’t fear failure. Satchu laments that while Americans seem to be able to laugh off business failure as a necessary step on the way to success, Canadians tend to write off failed business people as losers. “If you haven’t failed, you haven’t really learned enough. It shows you’re not pushing yourself,” he says.

3. Pursue all leadership opportunities that come your way. “When you’re 21, 22, you have the whole world ahead of you – but not a lot of management experience,” says Satchu. “I hope people will take on leadership opportunities in their own lives. Because the best way to become a great leader is to go out and do it.”

These have stuck in my head every day since I read the article beginning of the month. Satchu lays it out and calls BS on many of our daily excuse generating mentality. Challenge the hell out of yourself, if you think you can’t possibly do it, get to it and figure it out and stretch yourself. Then while you’re doing so and you fail, good. What? GOOD? Yes, good because those are the lessons that are vital and start to learn that failing does not correlate with being a failure...it’s all about how you handle a failed event, business or situation – what have your learned and what are you going to do about it – take the challenge to turn it into a future success. Now for leadership, nothing refines your skills better than having to lead and that includes making the decisions no one else wants to make.

Easy task? Not at all...but let’s just say it has given me a nudge on areas to strive for.