Self-leadership is really important as part of your leadership journey. If you want others to trust and believe in you as a leader, you must trust and believe in yourself.

On Thursday 1st June, all our Year 8 Student Values Leaders went to National Young Leaders Day.

The National Young Leaders Days (NYLD) are the largest and longest-running leadership event for primary and intermediate school students. These large-scale annual events aim to develop student leadership. Since 2001, more than 110,000 students have been empowered to fulfil their dreams and become great leaders at National Young Leaders Day in New Zealand. NYLD events are also held in Australia and Singapore.

The objectives of NYLD are

• Inspiration
• Connection
• Student empowerment
• Promoting positivity
• Motivation
• Education

NYLD events include motivational talks from great New Zealand leaders, question times, videos, music and interactive activities. The speaking team consists of leaders in business, sport, politics, community service, science and the arts. There is a strong sense on the day that the baton is being passed, as an older generation of leaders imparts their wisdom to the emerging generation of young leaders. The message of the day develops, as students are challenged not only to reach their own personal goals but the goals of those they are leading.

Brad Smeele – Former Pro Wakeboarder/ Quadriplegic/ Communicator 

Maggie - Brad Smeele had a fascinating and engaging story, he showed the importance of not giving up and keeping going. He also told us that we should not focus on what others have but on what we have in life. It was inspiring hearing how he came back from such a terrible accident, it comes to show however bad life might seem it always gets better.

Mia - Brad talked to us first about his professional wakeboarding career and what that meant to him before his accident. He said ‘I felt like I was living the dream’. He showed us how by blowing in and out at different levels of intensity he could control the direction and height of his wheelchair. On the theme of self-leadership, he said to always be kind to people and lead by example. While he was in ICU all the friends he had made during his wakeboarding career helped him through the mental battle. He was also talking about accepting what is out of our control and to keep your self in the present not in the past. Brad described his time after the accident as swimming against the current, because he put himself through years of training trying to regain his arm movement, and he realised that the more he swam the more exhausted he became, until he decided to swim with the current and let it take him into the future.

Wiremu - Brad Smeele was really inspiring saying that he didn’t let his loss of movement stop him from doing other things he loved. But in that, he also accepted that he couldn’t get his movement back, and saying that in front of a whole crowd admitting that you accepting something so hard is just so inspiring.

Treat others how you would like to be treated.

Rory - Last Thursday the Values Leaders went to the city hall to hear from various speakers on self-leadership. The first of these was Brad Smele, a former wakeboarder. He travelled across the world to do wakeboarding until when attempting a massive jump in Lake Ronix he fell and broke his C4 vertebrae, turning him into a quadriplegic. He spoke about how he felt after his injury, being grateful and ungrateful by comparing himself to others and how the rest of his body not needing as much oxygen allowed him to stay underwater for longer.

Samuel C - During national young leaders day we had 5 speakers the first was Brad Smeele. He was a professional wakeboarder and is now a QUADRIPLEGIC. He talked about his story and spread the message of never giving up because it could always be worse. He had to give what he loved because his injury pulled him down for ages and he was jealous of how some people's Quadriplegic accidents were so much better. But then he met someone whose accident was much worse and he realized it was a good thing he wasn’t hurt as bad as them. Then he began doing other things like swimming and going to the gym. At the end of his presentation, I got a lot out of his message about how it can always get worse and this is why I think his presentation was the best at the event.

Julia Grace – Mental Wellness Communicator 

Samuel S - Julia Grace is a Mental Health speaker and Educator who travels around New Zealand speaking about Mental health and Educating people of all ages in how to maintain a good mental state. She recently spoke at the Christchurch town hall during the national young leaders day 2023 (NYLD), and the Merrin school year eight values team were lucky enough to be allowed to come to the event and listen to her speak. Julia talked about having a jelly buddy and understanding your wobbly points. A Jelly buddy is a person who you can trust and rely on when you feel unsafe or unwell. They should be able to comfort you in bad times and help you get through those difficult times. Wobbly points are those bad times that a jelly buddy can help you out of. Wobbly points are points in your life where you feel wrong or you feel unwell in your mental state.

Julia Grace was a really cool speaker and was a great addition to the NYLD23.

Ryan G - Julia Grace was a speaker at this year's National Young Leaders Day at the Christchurch Town Hall. The topic for this year's National Young Leaders Day was Leading The Self and Self Leadership. She was one of the many speakers. She talked about finding a Jelly Buddy (a Jelly Buddy is someone that you trust to talk to when you are feeling down) and knowing when you're at your Wobbly (feeling Wobbly is when you have mixed emotions, or when you’re feeling down). She talked about flight, fight, freeze, and fawn. Those were the reactions for when you're feeling Wobbly.

Jazmyn - Last week me and the rest of the year 8s leaders went to the national young leaders day and we had speakers come up and talk about leadership. One of our speakers were julia grace and she taught me the meaning of fight, flight, freeze, Fawn, and response. She also told us that being anxious is normal and to also be kind to your mind. She also talked about jelly but not like the eating jelly, like get yourself a JELLY BUDDY, or STRESSED OUT BRAINS ARE OFFLINE BRAINS, or even ONE DEGREE OF CHANGE, or maybe RECOGNISE YOUR WOBBLY POINT. It was a cool event and I liked it very much.

Julia L - Julia Grace is an inspirational Mental Health speaker that uses her honesty and humor to talk to youth and adults around New Zealand. Julia Grace talked to us about how important our mental health is and how important it is to talk to someone about it. She told us about her struggles as someone who has been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but also how she deals with that. I learnt that to be a leader you have to be kind to your mind, because as leaders sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to be a good role model for others and forget about looking after ourselves. Julia Grace included things that were simple and easy to remember but also had deeper meanings like: “Get yourself a jelly buddy”, implying that we find someone that we trust; that can listen to us when we’re feeling “wobbly”.

Georgia Lines – Musician

Lachlan - On the 1st of June All the year 8 values leaders got the privilege to go to National Young Leaders Day. While we were there we got to listen to 5 amazing speakers But I'm here today to talk about Georgia lines. The awesome kind caring singer/musician. Georgia talked about caring about having Goals and working hard to get there and only focusing on stuff that you can control. At the end of her amazing speech, she played one of her songs. Made for loving Then she played Flowers Miley Cyrus. Overall it was an amazing experience and I loved it.

Eddie - Last Thursday all of the Year 8 Values Leaders went to National Young Leaders Day and heard from 5 speakers. One of the speakers was Georgia Lines. She is a musician who started producing music during the lockdowns in 2020 and she taught us about all of the stages and strategies she used to keep herself stable throughout the lockdowns. At the end of her speech, she gave us a show of her songs.

Georgia -I was amazed to see inspiring people talk such as Brad Smeele, Julia Grace and Graci Kim and most importantly Georgia Lines who I will be talking about. If you don't know who Georgia Lines she is a singer-songwriter who performed and talked about achieving and working towards your goals. Georgia also talked about focusing on what you can control, rather than stressing about things out of your control. I really enjoyed listening to Georgia Lines talk and I loved how she sang songs at the end of the talk.

Elispeta - Georgia Lines is NZ leader. Georgia Lines is a songwriter and musician. Georgia Lines inspired me to chase my dreams and never give up on things that I truly loved. Georgia Lines is a person who went through a tough time to get to her dream but she gave it her all to not give up, through her experiment she learned many things like not stopping doing something she really loves and learning to never give up.

Alisdair - On Thursday at the town hall, a very special event took place. It was NYLD, or National Young Leaders Day, in which many children from across the South Island came together to listen to some well-known figures, such as former professional wakeboarder Brad Smeele, renowned author Graci Kim and singer-songwriter Georgia Lines. She started off, before lockdown, and decided to become a singer, but it was four years later that she actually released her first song. The reason behind that was fear: she was afraid of criticism, about getting it wrong, about it failing; but what she taught us was to keep trying. Lockdown ruined the release of her first song, but that didn’t stop her: she overcame the problems and managed to persevere through the tough stages of life, and she never, in any situation, gives up. And that’s about it, her inspirational speech was good, and her amazing performance was quite an end to the show. All I can say was that I would recommend it, and would definitely go again if I was given the chance.

Graci Kim – Diplomat turned bestselling author 

Loretta - Graci Kim is an author, but that wasn’t her first idea for a job. She worked at a circus at age 16, after seeing it with front-row tickets for her birthday, then got a University of Auckland arts degree. She decided to make her own job, and created an interactive game for children, which, when she tried to get it produced, failed. She then created a cooking channel, showing videos of her and friends making meals, and then trying them. She got lots of views, but eventually, it failed too. She was upset about it for a while, then tried again, with a draw into a toy project called My Thingymabob, which worked for a while, then failed. But this time it failed better, so, feeling inspired, Graci decided to try again, but this time wrote a book, called The Last Fallen Star, which eventually got produced! She was going to go on a tour, signing books and meeting her fans, when lockdown struck. So, not giving up, she decided to post a picture of her face, asking if people could copy and cut it out, then show photos and videos as if she was really there. She expected only a couple people to do it, but to her surprise, heaps of people did! One day, she was reading her emails, when she realized they were blurry. She thought it was time for new glasses, but it turned out she needed eye surgery, and if she didn’t get it within the next 24 hours, she would go blind. So, she had the surgery, and months later, she was finally able to take off the bandage and see again. During this time, she realized how much people rely on seeing, even in simple phrases such as ‘See you later’, and ‘I’m looking forward to this’. She came up with a concept, “You can take away my eyes, but you can't take away my smile.” Graci is now living in Auckland with her husband and daughter, writing a new series of books.

Liam - On the first of June of the Year 8 Values Leaders went to NYLD at the Christchurch Town Hall we had several speakers. One of them was a writer named Gracy Kim who wrote the last Falling Star and Moon books. She had an interesting life story that went through discrimination failure and failure idea after idea and almost lost her sight and eventually ended up as an author. She had an interesting idea in that she talked about picking a favourite ice cream before you had teased them and the flavours being different jobs which lead to all the failed ideas. In conclusion, Gracy Kin was an inspirational and thought-provoking speaker at the Christchurch NYLD 2023.

Taya - Graci Kim is an author that originated from Korea. Personally, she was my favourite speaker during NYLD 2023 due to her inspiration and her quotes and ideas that made a lot of sense to me. I liked how she persevered through the tough parts of her life and continued to chase her dreams. Her speech and her way of telling people about not giving up and trying new things made it really wonderful and inspired me to try new things. A quote said by her is: “Try different things and never give up”

Zaki - Graci Kim is a creative, intuitive, and kind author. Her work is well put-together and thought out and she has an honest, inspirational backstory. My favourite part about her presentation was describing her struggles with being temporarily blind. Overall, her speech was entertaining, inspiring, and fun, as well as great confidence on the stage. I wish her good luck in her future books and her life.