Today (May 6), I was lucky enough to attend the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast event in London, Ontario.  The main conference was held in Georgia, but over 80 000 people across the country attended telecast events.

The physical event was loaded with forward thinking minds and the list of speakers and the topics they covered was truly amazing.  In the above audio I give my recap of the event.

Here is a list of the speakers today:

Seth Godin
Entrepreneur, Marketing Expert, & Best-Selling Author of 12 Books Including “Linchpin”

John Maxwell
Leadership Expert & Best-Selling Author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Mack Brown
Head Coach of the Texas Longhorns, 2009 Big 12 Coach of the Year

Suzy Welch
Best-selling author, television commentator, and noted business journalist

Erin Gruwell
Founder & President of Freedom Writers Foundation

If you’ve been paying attention to my blog, or know me in person, then you’re aware that there are a few issues I’m truly passionate about.  One of these such issues is how adamant I am that the school system needs to change to promote entrepreneurialism.  In my view, the current educational structure systematically kills creativity, lateral thinking, and all the other no-so-easy-to-quantify subjective traits that so many entrepreneurs, leaders, and forward thinkers embody.

I graduated from university less than 6 months ago, after 5 years at one of the best schools in the country; The University of Western Ontario.  After the stifling structure of high school, I assumed university would be an escape from the confines that were holding me back.  A place of academia open to new ideas and forward thinking.  A place where my creative and entrepreneurial tendencies would be encouraged and cultivated.  Once I arrived, I was met with a different reality.  Everything from the institutional side was identical.  So many larger classes even utilized the ultimate creativity killer; the scantron test.  “Choose A, B, C, D, or E”.  This type of testing literally strips you of any potential creativity or open interpretation, as if to say “do it our way or fail”.