CULTURE Leadership Events
EMERGING LEADERS Inspirational, entertaining, thought- provoking, real. Through their wit, wisdom, and good old-fashioned advice, the speakers at Emerging Leaders 2019 made for a truly memorable day. Hundreds of students from schools all over Christchurch and Canterbury came together at College on Tuesday 2 July. Many of them will step up and take on leadership roles in their schools; all of them now have greater insight into how best to approach their lives. Paralympian bladerunner Liam Malone shared with honesty and humour the story of how he turned his life around to become one of New Zealand’s greatest athletes, winning two golds and a silver medal at the Rio Paralympics in 2016. He wasn’t a runner, crowdfunded to buy his first pair of blades and, after training – hard – on his own, had to convince a coach to take him on. “When I started to train the idea of revealing my legs made me feel physically ill. I was so nervous because I’d never been an athlete before ... but I had to succeed, I had no choice.” He learned how to manage stress by using mindfulness, put together a team that focused on collaboration, communication and creativity, and became fascinated by the relationship between biology and technology, how it can be used and how far it can go. “Blade running is about the relationship between the user and the technology. For the first time in my life I was not simply good at something, but was the best in the world.”
people, and practise mindfulness, practise everyday, and go out and make the most of life.” Associate Professor of Marketing at UC Ekant Veer talked about failing vs failure, and how failure has come to be seen as something bad. “Most successful people have failed at some point in their life, failing happens a lot, but a sense of failure can become a state of mind that affects behaviour.”
Liam took full advantage of the incredible opportunities that opened up for him as a result of his success. Since retiring, he has worked in the realm of Artificial Intelligence, become an angel investor, created stand-up comedy, run a marathon and started training for an Ironman. He is restless, curious, always open to new ideas. His advice? “Be authentic, be real, do the work and be honest about what you want to do, surround yourself with good
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Christ’s College Canterbury
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