Students Attend Halogen Young Leaders Day

Halogen gathers together prominent leaders from all walks of life to present at their National Young Leaders Days. Some of our Year 11 leaders enjoyed a day of speakers, question times, short videos, and learning exercises incorporating student involvement and interaction at the Perth event last week. The event is designed to benefit students who show an interest in developing their leadership potential.

We asked the girls who attended about their day. Here’s what they said:

The Halogen Leadership Conference involved sitting in a big auditorium with many Perth schools, both primary and secondary, listening to four different speakers. We participated in various ice breaker games and met some really cool people!

The speakers included John Coutis, who was born with a severe physical disability. John embraces a full and positive life and is an inspirational speaker. He talked about self-discipline and taking responsibility.  Olympic swimmer, Eamon Sullivan, talked about setbacks and hard work, and Dana Hooker, an AFLW player for the West Coast Eagles, talked about goal setting and controlling the controllable. Our personal favourite, Lachie Smart, was the youngest person to fly around the world in a single-engine aircraft, he talked about never giving up and not avoiding pain.

Throughout the day as we listened to the different speakers, they shared some valuable messages with us. An example from John Coutis was his analogy of the $20.00 note. He talked about how you can stamp, scrunch and throw away a $20.00 note and in the end, it stills has its worth. This relates to people being put down, facing setbacks and challenges, and still being able to persevere and remember your worth to make a change. 

Dana Hooker shared a strong message with us that listening is far more important than speaking, and in leadership, this is a very valuable lesson to remember. This message is similar to another message from John Coutis, which was to look and listen twice as much as you speak. He said this because we all have two ears and two eyes but only one mouth. These messages remind us that in a leadership position we are representing everyone not just ourselves.

Some of the skills they introduced on the day were to push us outside our comfort zone, create goals for ourselves or a group, adapt to changes, admit when we are wrong, learn from challenges, listen to others, and remember that setbacks are the foundation to success.