Inspiring young leaders

National Young Leaders Day

12 high-potential young leaders from years 7&8  recently attended the Halogen Foundation's National Young Leaders Day at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. This is their report of the experience.

The Young Leaders Day was a really smooth running day with lots of fun, interesting speakers and leaders, from wonderful athletes to people who have had to overcome the hardships of life. I am confident to say that all 12 kids chosen to attend, learnt a lot and were inspired in some way or another.

My favourite speaker by far was John Coutis who has an amazing story to share: from the moment he was born he proved each doctors' theory wrong.  John was born with a disability that affected the growth of his lower body, his parents were told that he wouldn’t last a day. But a day went by, then a week, a month as well.  “He won't make it to his first birthday,” they said.  He proved them wrong.  As he grew up he experienced bullying from kids in every year level. At the age of 8 he made the big step of getting his legs amputated and survived that as well: I like to think of him as a terminator.

He told a story of loving the people around you and proved to us just how important family and friends are. I find that the message he got across to me was to be a leader you need to persist in the face of failure.

I now know just what the value of being a leader is. To be able to lead at the front of the pack is a hard job but one thing  I learnt on Monday the 13th of November is to take failure as a win.

Our second speaker for the day was a female bowler for the Melbourne Stars cricket team, Gemma Triscari. Gemma told the story of how she accidentally joined the cricket team when she was young, and went on to learn she was a skilful bowler. She told us how she went on to play for Western Australia and eventually the Stars. The most important lesson that she gave us, was that if we were ever going to learn and succeed in life, then we will have to leave our comfort zone. Gemma stated that “Comfort zones are just another word for limits, and limits are meant to be pushed.” This inspired all of the attendees, to step outside their comfort zones, and take up every opportunity possible. The NYLD was a great experience to learn about leadership skills. Gemma’s message was one of the many lessons we were taught on that day, and what I took out of it was that to be a great leader, all you have to do is try.

After Monday, I (and all the other eight hundred and thirteen attendees) will take away these lessons, and put them into action, in whatever leadership role they might be doing. They might be the captain of a sports team, to an inspirational speaker. Any of these roles require a knowledge of great leadership, which is the exact knowledge we have taken from this memorable event.

Magnus Mulhall 7D, Will Grage-Perry 7L