Every year, Edify magazine shares it’s Top 40 Under 40 – a group of Edmontonians who are making an impact on our city. This year, five MacEwan alumni made the cut, including Harpreet Singh. He graduated from MacEwan’s Bachelor of Commerce Transfer program in 2004 and is now the owner of AMRIK Developments, a real estate company.

We caught up with him recently to discuss his career, his passions and his time at MacEwan.

What lesson did you learn at MacEwan that you still carry with you today?

Degrees don’t happen overnight and neither does any success worth chasing. The worthiest achievements in life come from ongoing dedication, openness to working with others and persistent effort. When you feel like giving up and you feel like you have nothing more to give, that is when you need to remind yourself of the people who would kill to have the opportunity you do and how you are doing a disservice by not maximizing it. I live by the mantra that in order to take advantage of the opportunities in front of you, you must be aggressive and hustle because nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

What moment or memory from your time at MacEwan stands out to you the most?

I was dreading my first group assignment. I had always felt that I worked best on my own and was daunted by the dynamics of managing multiple personalities along with differing work styles. Nonetheless, and much to my dismay, I was assigned a group in my first year at MacEwan and went into this project with a dismal attitude.

Believe it or not, this group experience completely changed my perspective and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of work we produced. I will never forget the late nights in the library together and the collective brainstorming and creativity. We quickly identified each team member’s strengths and strategically played to them so that we could maximize our collective talents.

I was more than impressed with what we accomplished and it certainly changed my attitude for the better. After this initial experience, I became a big advocate for group projects, and to this day, I fondly think of this experience and how much better the result can be through collaboration and partnership.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement so far?

I went through a dark period in my career where nothing was going my way. The economy was against me in every possible way and in terms of my business, everything that could go wrong went wrong. I fell flat on my face and had no cushion. I was near bankruptcy and had lost everything I worked so hard to build. I had two choices: I could pivot, change careers and find a new way to make ends meet, or I could dust myself off, stay true to myself and rebuild my business from the ground up.

I started rebuilding my business brick by brick. Giving up on my dream because of setbacks seemed like the easy way out and in my experience, the best things in life never come from the easy route. I look back at that pivotal moment in life and I am so happy I made the decision to start again from ground zero. I can now proudly say I have built our company to a level surpassing what we had done before. Moreover, I am blessed to say that because of the unexpected hiccups in my career, I am now armed with the practical knowledge and anecdotal education only a massive failure could have provided.

Read Harpreet’s Top 40 Under 40 profile.