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Become the Leader You Are – An Inspiring Evening at ISKL

Published by SchoolAdvisor | Sep 26, 2019
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The International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) recently held an event on September 25, titled Become the Leader You Are, at their Ampang Hilir campus. The event was open for students, alumni, parents and guests.

Mr Rami Madani, ISKL Head of School inaugurated the event with his welcome speech stating how he learns about leadership every day from the inspirational people around him. He then welcomed Praxia Apostle, the Director of Learning on stage.

Praxia introduced the guests to the speakers for the evening - Carla Cuglietta, Tyler Waye and the keynote speaker, Chris Koch.

ISKL School Event

Carla has won numerous awards for her humanitarian and youth leadership work around the world, while Tyler speaks to help young people find clarity and confidence in upcoming decisions about school and work.

Chris, on the other hand, is an inspirational speaker as well as a farmer and adventurer who is in Kuala Lumpur to complete his 8th full marathon (42.2 km). He doesn’t let barriers get in his way; instead, he embraces every challenge as an opportunity.

All three are part of YoungLeaders.World team, which is a non-profit, Canada based organization and supports emerging generations in discovering life leadership aimed at personal growth and the collective good. By collaborating with ISKL students the YLW team intends to help them overcome obstacles and develop life leadership mindset through the connection between personal growth and collective good.

ISKL Event

With this aim in mind, Carla talked about how she has found leaders in unlikely places. She said, “You don’t hear about these leaders because they are not prominent personalities. They are people like you and me who took charge of a situation to improve their own lives as well as the lives of the community.”

Tyler too was instrumental in encouraging the guests with his inspiring speech whereby he compared how the lives of students are like rivers when they are in school.

“Like rivers have banks on both sides, students in schools are guided by their teachers to follow a certain path. And regardless of the grades they achieve in school, all students will eventually follow this same path. But life after school is like the sea where there are no banks to guide the path,” he said.

He added that many youngsters understandably feel lost in the sea of life. However, the solution is leadership, which according to him is the ability to change direction when the present direction no longer feels suitable.

“I believe the ability to shift from the present position to a new direction is leadership. The new direction might not be the right direction but the willingness to take that risk for yourself as well as for greater good is what I call leadership,” he explained.

After their motivating speeches, both Carla and Tyler welcomed Chris and he appeared on stage to thunderous applause.  

 Chris Koch

Chris gave a very uplifting presentation complete with his “If I Can” message and he also showed videos of the variety of adventures that he undertook as part of a travelogue. He was inspiring to say the least but what warmed the audience more to him was his amazing sense of humour.

He repeatedly mentioned how he never let his physical disabilities come in his way of living life exactly the way that he wished to.

He mentioned, “I believe leadership is accepting the negatives and making the most of what you have. I am not saying that because I can, with all my physical disabilities, what excuse do you have? I know everyone has their own battles to fight. All I am saying is don’t let barriers stop you from achieving what you want.”

Are You Happy?

He will be participating in his 8th marathon this Sunday in Kuala Lumpur and his aim is to visit all the countries in the world.

If you are interested to know more about Young Leaders World, check out their website. Further details on Chris Koch can be found in recent headlines about his personal best marathon time and on his “If I Can” Facebook page.

Ifican

The event concluded with a panel discussion that included all the three speakers along with Mr Rami Madani and was moderated by Praxia.