Captains Corner

Jenna - On Monday 27th March, on National Young Leader's Day, four famous Australians shared a bit about their past and how they came to be where they are today. One of these speakers was Amanda Johnstone.

As a teenager, she had dyslexia (having extra difficulty in subjects such as reading or spelling), and she had synesthesia, (the condition of seeing colours when people speak) which she had to hide as they were not acceptable back then. She was also very easily distracted. Despite that, because of the lack of clothing stores in her home state, Tasmania, she made a business plan and convinced Nigel Oston the CEO of Cotton On to mentor her at 16. By 18 years of age, Amanda had three stores and one online store. What got Amanda invested in science and technology was when her science teacher asked her: "What if your reality was someone else's dream", and due to her friends' mental health problems, Amanda was even more towards a new goal, and eight years ago, she started a mental health business with free technology in over eighty countries.

Jude - Nazeem Hussain is a famous Australian comedian and author that we were lucky enough to meet at The National Young Leader’s Day.  Nazeem grew up in a very poor Sri-Lankan family with a single mum and two sisters. He was a very silly boy in school and drove the teachers crazy.  In class when he was bored, his favourite single player game to play was “Underpants” where you say the word “underpants” as loud as you can without getting caught.  Nazeem loved chocolate, this came about after he fell in love with the book Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  He loved chocolate so much that every day he’d hide a bar under his pillow before he went to bed so he could eat it in the night. He would often fall asleep with a bar of chocolate in his mouth.  Nazeem Hussain was my favourite speaker of the day because he was very charismatic and his story was hilarious and very interesting.

Isaac - Robert is Famously known as “Dipper” he was an AFL legend, a 5 time premiership player and Brownlow medal winner for the best player. I learnt a lot from Dipper’s inspirational speech.  He shared with us some quotes such as...“Success is nothing if you arrive at the finish line on your own”.   A fact about Dipper, in one the football grand finals he continued to play the game and kick goals whilst having a punctured lung, this shows determination and never give up on you dreams. We also learnt from the presenters that we can achieve anything if you have a goal in mind, don’t be too hard on yourself and believe that you can do it. I am really grateful that I was able to experience The National Young Leaders Day with my fellow school captains and Mrs Milanese, it was a memorable and motivating experience.

Adrina - Last Thursday, at the National Young Leaders Day event, we had a few guest speakers come and talk to us, one of whom was Candy Hertz, a famous sports host. She talked about portfolio careers and said this: “In a portfolio career, you don’t just have one job, you have many.” She then told us what a set path is. You go to school, university, then you get your first job, a promotion and someday, you become the boss. Candy said that she did not follow this path. She made her own path. “It’s like scribble. You never know what it’s going to look like,” 

She also gave us some presenting tips: 

-Breathe 

-Play a song 

-Know what you’re talking about. 

Candy’s first job was a job where she would work with advertisements. This was her dream job. Soon, the company crashed and lots of people couldn’t work there anymore. They then gave her the option of becoming a sports host. The first time she spoke in front of the camera, she knew that it was the right thing for her. She is now working with Women’s Basketball and has enjoyed the Australian Open the most so far this year. Here are a couple more notes from Candy: “When you are talking on TV, nobody other than you knows what you originally planned out; they don’t notice your mistakes.” “Success is different for everybody…”