Speech for school leavers

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

I want to first congratulate all the learners for all their hard work which has borne them the sweet fruit of success! You deserve to be proud of your achievements!

I secondly congratulate the teachers, especially the grade 1 and pre-school teachers who first taught the learners how to read and write! The high school teachers also had to deal with teenagers and all their troubles, and out of them have moulded successful young men and women.

Thirdly I want to thank the parents who not only put up the money for the education of these future parents and leaders, but made great sacrifices of time to help with the homework, finding the best possible schools, attending school functions and some even participating in school governing bodies.

Last but not least, I want to thank the Education Department, through its various structures, for helping to mould future contributors to South Africa’s economy and society in general.

To the learners, I have been asked to come and motivate you to further success in the rest of your lives.

I come here not as a billionaire businessman. Nor do I come here as a parent, but I come here as an older brother and fellow young person who has had some success and some failures in life. During my speech, feel free to clap whenever you like what you hear.

The title of my talk this evening is:

Tips for life after the final school bell.

• Tip 1: Define success for yourself:

In school, as we all know, the most important measure of success is one’s academic performance.

In life after the final school bell, those who lead fulfilled lives are those who define what success is, for themselves.

There are many different goals that one can pursue. For example, a person can choose to become a priest, a policeman, a doctor, a musician, a lawyer, accountant, housewife, astronaut, or even a soldier.

There are many other which I will not mention.

Of the above mentioned career paths, one can even go as far as choosing to be mediocre in them or excellent.

Whatever it is that you choose to do for the rest of your life, I urge you to set your own standards for measuring your success at attaining your goals.

By this, I do not mean you should set for yourself standards that do not test or stretch your abilities. No, what I am saying is that you have to know yourself fully well. You need to know your strengths and weaknesses. You need to learn to observe what opportunities around you are relevant to your strengths and thus you can utilize them to yours and other people’s benefits. My fellow young people, I am also asking you to evaluate your surroundings and ask yourself what will threaten your achievement of the goals that you have set for yourself.

By defining what exactly for you personally will have been a successful life, you will be taking an important step in being self empowered.

Yes, it is true what you’ve heard many times before, that you are in charge of your own life after the final school bell.

• Tip 2: Take Action

In order for you who have excelled in your studies to achieve that, you had to take action. It is your taking action to study and make many sacrifices that led to you passing matric as well as you did. I urge you to never forget to take action on the things that are important towards making your life fulfilled.

Many of you will be pursuing further studies at universities or colleges. I wish you well in those studies and urge you to take the same disciplined action that brought you success in matric.

Do not let your success now stand in the way of further success. What do I mean? Some people after having achieved one level of success get caught up in playing the role of a winner, flaunting that single success so much so that they forget to take action that will enable them to achieve further successes. These are sometimes people we meet begging for money or doing work that they are not happy with, but are always repeating how successful they were in school to anybody who cares to listen.

So, remember to take action in order to achieve the success that you have defined for yourself.

• Tip 3: Have fun

Yes, you deserve it! We all have different definitions of what it is to have fun. As long as you are not hurting yourself or others, please do have some fun!

After the last bell of high school rang, I went to a lot of concerts, parties and clubs. It was fun and I still enjoy other activities besides the ones I have just mentioned.

I have met many wonderful people and have great memories from the various leisure activities that I partook in in my early twenties.

Do not deny yourself that pleasure!

• Tip 4: Let go of the past

Not long after we had completed high school, some of my high school friends and I tried to keep in touch and spend whatever possible free time together. I guess we did not want to lose the comfort of the relationships that we had built over the years. As much as we tried to still be the same old friends, we could not fight the natural process of growing up. As our interests changed and views on life changed, we drifted apart. It was not easy at first, but we met new friends and forged new bonds and learnt to let go. We learnt not to accuse each other of not phoning and learnt to stop accusing each other of not visiting, but to rather accept the change and let go of the past.

• Tip 5: Allow yourself to take advice

Most of you here are probably very ambitious and have a lot of self confidence. Very good qualities if harnessed well. It is not always easy when you’ve achieved success before, to even accept in your mind that you may fail at things in the future. It is always said that a wise man learns from his mistakes. But an even wiser man also learns from the mistakes of others. In essence, when you learn from other people’s mistakes, you learn quicker and less painfully.

So when the parents phone when you are in university to ask how you are doing, and tell you to be careful of the girls or to be careful of the boys, and ask you how you are spending your money, as difficult as it can be to swallow, allow yourself to take their advice and action it.

Allow yourself also to take advice from other people who have achieved that which you are hoping to achieve in life. You may not meet some of the people you admire, but in order to gain their advice, you can read books, such as ´long walk to freedom´ by Nelson Mandela, ´unlimited power´ by Anthony Robbins, or for those of you who like having money, ´how to get rich´ by Donald Trump. You can also read ´losing my virginity´ by Richard Branson. And parents: no, it’s not a book about sex.

There are many other books that you can read and get inspiration from. Apply that which is relevant in terms of what you have defined as success in your life.

There will be peers that you can also get advice from. Some of the people who will be advising you, may not always be people who have achieved what you hope to achieve. Some of the people who may give you advice, may be people who have failed at some or other goal they have tried to obtain. By telling you their stories of how they failed to achieve what they had set out to do, you can learn lessons on what not to do.

Sometimes our lessons come from sources we would have never imagined. I’ll tell you a quick anecdote about a young man named Thabang. Thabang had just completed his studies in how to train circus animals and had just been employed by a successful circus group. Upon arrival he was introduced to an old man and as they exchanged greetings, the old man immediately with enthusiasm started explaining to Thabang about the different animals and how they behave and how he should treat them. Thabang cut the old man mid-sentence and said to the old man: ´you know what, you don’t need to teach me anything, I’ve got the papers.´ The following day Thabang was busy trying to train an elephant and the elephant started charging at him. As he was running away from the animal, he saw the old man and started screaming and appealing for the old man to help him. The old man just looked at him and shouted back: ´show it the papers´. So please, allow yourself to take advice.