Living authentically

On Thursday 14 September, Years 9 and 10 attended a talk from motivational speaker Luke S. Kennedy.  Luke spoke about being your authentic self, not following labels given to you by others and doing things for yourself instead of what we think others want us to do. 

Luke shared stories from his past and how he has overcome challenges and his poor choices in life to become someone that is happy in who they are. He challenged students to remove their mask and be their authentic selves while surrounding themselves with people that make them better. 

Students were engaged in the talk and asked some very thought provoking questions. 

We are proud of the behaviour of our students and thank Luke for sharing his stories and inspiring us.

Miss Preston

Year 9 Adviser

“This visit from Luke S. Kennedy served as an inspirational and motivational event for the students at Cecil Hills High School. We enjoyed hearing his story and how he came back from his real life struggles and slowly changed his life to become successful. This can really impact and change peoples lives, as it shows us how it is possible to overcome hard times and learn valuable lessons from it. This story is definitely helpful in schools because it can inspire students to continue through their own difficulties and view them as chances for development and learning.

His goal with the talk was to teach and inspire students to be themselves and as he said, their 'true authentic self' and to not put on a mask and change your personality as you surround yourself with the wrong type of people. He was saying this from personal experience and how by surrounding himself with the wrong people, he was forced to be a different person, and put on a violent criminal persona. 

 

We believe that he taught many of the kids at our school a very valuable lesson.”

by Luka Kos and Aleksandar Maric (Year 9)

 

“We are from Cecil Hills High School and we appreciated you for coming to our school and opening up about your past life. We can tell that you really want the next generation to achieve the best they can in life and to have a long, peaceful life. Together with our friends, we are very thankful that you have managed to speak up about all the things you have been through and the ways you have overcome them. We can’t relate so much but we feel sympathetic for your past actions and choices. Enough about your past, you have achieved so much as a human being and you are still pushing forward which is very inspiring to many young people just like us. The way you spoke and moved, portrayed you as a very confident and overall a nice person.  As a whole year group, we all needed that push of motivation to gain the confidence to do the things we wanted to do. You have motivated us not to think about others' opinions and to strive for the best as we are still young and still mentally developing. 

 

We can’t thank you enough Luke, you don't know how much you have positively impacted our lives. ♥️” 

 

by Mia Arcaba and Destiny Cruse (Year 9)