NY State Student Council Conference

The NY State student council conference was chilly, but full of warm people. I had the opportuinty to be a "show case" speaker and was sponsored by Herff Jones to lead two keynotes with about 400 student leaders in each group. It was fun and these young ladies in the pictures were the student gov. officers of their school.

The highlight of this conference was hearing another speaker by the name of Mawai http://www.mawispeaks.com/. He is beyond inspirational and a wonderful speaker. He fled civil war in Ethiopia and survived a Sudanese refugee camp for three years. After being resettled in The United States, Mawi overcame welfare, language barriers and personal tragedy to graduate from Harvard University. What a great reminder about how we can preserve through any hardships!

Girls Only Conference ROCKED!

Yesterday I was in Northern California for a Girls Only Leadership Conference. It was so much fun and such a unique conference. We had 289 junior and seniors in HS and 13 advisors-it was an amazing group! I had the opportunity to speak with Shyana Boyte and another young woman Karla Lyngrar. We had three keynote speakers and then the girls had discussion groups about the keynote message.


It was great to see the young ladies connect with each other and think a little deeper about their own lives and who they are becoming. Also, it was extra special for me to work with Phil Boyte (the speaker I met when I was 13 years old, who inspired me to be a speaker). He had the vision for this event and did a wonderful job putting the conference on and organizing the day! I hope to do more Young Women conferences and events in the future---they ROCK!

NHS-National Honor Society Conference- It was an HONOR

This past weekend I had the honor of being at the NHS conference in Orlando, Fl. There were over 850 NHS and NHJS students from across the nation. The students in this picture were the two student emcees for the conference and very inspiring young people. Gordon and Charlotte did a wonderful job and it was tons of fun coaching them on delivery skills (although they are both naturals)! While not working with the emcees, I presented two workshops on Communication Skills and Building Dreams for Life. Also, the closing speaker, Bob Tryanski, www.bobtryanski.com did a great job and it is always fun to see speaker friends on the road!

Canadian Teens Are Great Leaders

This week I was in Canada for a speaker show case at www.ylcc.com . I was invited to share my keynote message, "Go Big and Make A Big Difference" with 900 Canadian students. The teens there are very similar to the teens in America...they just say "ehh" a little bit more. :) Seriously, it was a wonderful experience and traveling to see Niagara Falls was an incredible sight too!