Business leaders commended for tenacity
Premier also tips cap to young entrepreneurs
Tenacity, hard work, persistence, and a deep sense of confidence.
Those are among the most important traits of successful business people in British Columbia, Premier Christy Clark said Wednesday at an induction ceremony for the Business Laureates of B.C. Hall of Fame.
“If you’re born in Canada, you’re already lucky,” said Clark. “Now, it’s certainly true that different people in the world and in our country and province have different amounts of luck, given the circumstances they’re born into.
“But what differentiates the laureates and the examples we hold up tonight is their ability to spot that luck, pull it out of the air around them, and turn it into something through tenacity, hard work, persistence, through a deep sense of self-belief and confidence, through a willingness to fight for what they believe in and what they know they can do, despite the fact that people all around them may be telling them they have no chance of success. That is what differentiates the men and women who are honoured as business laureates from those of us who aren’t.”
She said being born into wealth isn’t a determinate of success, noting that the most successful are often “ordinary people, average ordinary, regular people who come from middle-class homes or who come from all different backgrounds.”
“We live and die in British Columbia by the fact that there are men and women who are prepared to risk everything on a dream. That’s what built Canada. And you don’t have to be special to be willing to do that. You just have to have the guts, the tenacity, the persistence. You don’t have to be born rich. You don’t even have to be born in Canada, but you have to have the will to succeed. And so tonight we celebrate those men and women who’ve proven to us what it can be when you decide you believe in yourself.”
Clark told the event, held by Junior Achievement B.C., that celebrating the achievements of young entrepreneurs is also a way of “telling young people, showing young people in real life, what can happen.”
Clark said that the B.C. government is investing $1 million in education programs that target entrepreneur and business skills for youth. Clark said British Columbians are naturally lucky because of where they live.