Life lessons from a serial entrepreneur who first needed to come second to figure out how to win

I started my first business at age 8, developing computer games and selling them to my classmates. My first pay cheque was advertising revenue I earned from a Metallica fan site I ran while in University. After graduating, my first real job was to rent a house with six of my best friends and become the founder of a tech startup.

I guess you could say I was born to be an entrepreneur. 

Fast forward a decade or two and I now travel the globe as a keynote speaker and executive coach to Fortune 500 companies.I’ve built successful businesses at some of the world’s biggest companies including Deloitte and Meta. 

But there’s a part of the story that’s usually left out: In 2011 I had been nominated for Young Entrepreneur of the Year and everyone assumed I would win. When I came in second place, I was completely crushed. In the end, it turned out that learning to fail was the one thing I didn’t know I needed in order to win.

This session is a revealing, vulnerable and hilarious talk from Amer Iqbal, former Head of Digital Transformation at Meta and current CEO of 5 Ways to Innovate. Participants will walk away entertained and educated on what it takes to be one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs.

This topic has now been published as a feature article in Fast Company!

• Be entertained with Amer’s life story as an entrepreneur, riding the emotional journey of ups and downs (with plenty of laughs!)
  

• Be inspired to embrace failure as a means of making breakthroughs and abandoning limiting beliefs
  

• Walk away with practical lessons they can apply in their own role to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to their day to day
  

• Best suited to broad audiences from a variety of industries and backgrounds

Fast Company feature article:

Why coming in second place is a winning leadership position