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NYLD 2023 speakers....

Check back soon - more speakers to be announced!

Brad Smeele - Former Pro Wakeboarder / Quadriplegic / Communicator (All Events)

Professional wakeboarder Brad Smeele dedicated more than half of his life to perfecting his craft, and as a result he quickly became known as an innovator who pushed the limits of the sport. After claiming two Junior World titles he became one of the first in the world to land a 1080. As his career progressed he continued to push the sport with world firsts; such as the multiple double flip combinations featured in the award-winning film 'Prime'.

Brad then won the 2014 trick of the year award with the worlds first double tantrum (back flip) to blind over a mega ramp. Unfortunately, just weeks later, Brad took a heavy crash attempting to land that same trick again, resulting in him breaking his neck, leaving him a quadriplegic.

Brad now inspires people worldwide with his tenacity to not only regain movement, but also to live a full and action packed life, regardless of his debilitating injury. Brad inspires people of all ages through his story of resilience and how he found happiness after his life changing injury.

He's also passionate about raising awareness and funding for spinal cord injury research, and helping others facing similar life changing circumstances.
Brad appears courtesy of Essential Talent.
Julia Grace - Mental Wellness Communicator (All Events)

Julia Grace is a unique Mental Wellness Communicator. She's the Professional Speakers Association of NZ 'Educator of the Year' and 'Breakthrough Speaker of the Year'. Julia is a Tui award winning Singer/Songwriter and an NZ qualified teacher.

Julia shares openly and honestly using her personal journey with diagnosed anxiety and depression, combined with an Educational Psych focus and 30 years of classroom experience. Using her unique blend of Science, Story and Song, she teach audiences of all ages in a FUN way to learn to 'Be Kind to Their Mind'.
'I'm so excited by the opportunity to help both this and future generations better understand their Mental Wellness, learning to lead successful and productive lives while still being honest about the challenges we all face.' - JULIA
Georgia Lines - Musician (All Events)

Georgia Lines has enchanted audiences with her effervescent personality, exquisite vocals, and distinctive feel-good R&B-sprinkled pop. Selling out a NZ solo tour, Georgia has amassed 3 million Spotify streams to date; become a familiar name in the Official NZ Chart and on NZ radio and featured in Rolling Stone Magazine.

Georgia won breakthrough artist at 2022 New Zealand Music Awards and was nominated for Best Pop Artist. In 2021 her single 'My Love' was translated into Te Reo Māori by Hana Mereraiha. Georgia continues her Te Reo journey, releasing her gently captivating arrangement of Māori waiata Hine E Hine in 2022.

Graci Kim - Diplomat turned Bestselling Author

(Speaking in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch & Dunedin)

Graci Kim is the diplomat turned New York Times bestselling author of The Last Fallen Star, The Last Fallen Moon, and The Last Fallen Realm. As featured in TIME Magazine for Kids & Entertainment Weekly, the Korean mythology-inspired trilogy has been optioned by the Disney Channel for a television series, and is being translated into multiple languages. It was named a Whitcoulls Kids Top 50, a 2021 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Children's Book, an Amazon Best Book, an Indigo Best Book, and a Barnes & Noble Young Reader Pick. In 2022, Graci was awarded the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best New Talent.

In a previous life, Graci was a New Zealand diplomat, a cooking show host, and once ran a business that turned children's drawings into cuddly toys. She now lives in Auckland with her husband and daughter.

Teachers Professional Development Session with Anna Tiatia Fa'atoese Latu

Anna is a senior lecturer in Hauora Māori at the University of Otago, Co-Director of Pōtiki Poi, and Chairperson of her local Kura Kaupapa. Anna is a friend, sister, daughter, wife, but most importantly the mother of 3 beautiful tāmariki who chose her to help them in this world.

Anna is keen to share her lived experiences of cultural confidence within various teaching environments. Join her for some interactive cultural capacity and capability training at NYLD 2023.

This session is free for any teachers attending NYLD.

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2023 Speakers | National Young Leaders Days

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NYLD 2023 speakers.... Check back soon - more speakers to be announced!

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The Hidden Power Behind Our Names  | Graci Kim Cribbens | TEDxYouth@AvonRiver

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Watch Julia Grace speak on Mental Wellness - showreel

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Graci Kim is a diplomat turned New York Times bestselling author

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Brad Smeele - From Pro Wakeboarder to Quadriplegic to Motivational Speaker

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Leaders are often made, not simply born. We are dedicated to sparking the leadership potential that's inside every young person through practical, inspirational events and leadership resources.

The National Young Leaders Days (NYLD) are the largest and longest running leadership event for primary and intermediate school students. These large scale annual events aim to develop student leadership. Since 2001, more than 110,000 students have been empowered to fulfill their dreams and become great leaders at a National Young Leaders Day in New Zealand. NYLD events are also held in Australia and Singapore.

The objectives of NYLD are

Inspiration

Connection

Student empowerment

Promoting positivity

Motivation

Education

Pricing
Primary and intermediate school registration
$45.00 per student (Before Thursday 30 March 2023)
$49.00 per student (After Thursday 30 March 2023)

Adult registration
$25.00 per adult
*All prices include GST. Ticket prices are subject to change.
The students

Every year, thousands of the Aotearoa's students and their teachers attend a National Young Leaders Day. Schools select students who demonstrate leadership potential and qualities to attend NYLD. Some schools send their top student leaders such as student councillors, sports leaders, mediators, captains, vice-captains and prefects. The event programme will benefit any student who demonstrates a willingness to develop their leadership skills. Every student who attends NYLD will receive a certificate of participation, which will be sent out after the event.

The programme

NYLD events include motivational talks from great New Zealand leaders, question times, videos, music and interactive activities. The speaking team consists of leaders in business, sport, politics, community service, science and the arts. There is a strong sense on the day that the baton is being passed, as an older generation of leaders imparts their wisdom into the emerging generation of young leaders. The message of the day develops, as students are challenged not only to reach their own personal goals but the goals of those they are leading.

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About NYLD | National Young Leaders Days

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Leaders are often made, not simply born. We are dedicated to sparking the leadership potential that's inside every young person through practical, inspirational events and leadership resources. The National Young Leaders Days (NYLD) are the largest and longest running leadership event for primary and intermediate school students.

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In 2014 professional wakeboarder Brad Smeele had it all - a career, success, women, and a lakeside home in sunny Florida. That all changed when a water trick failed catastrophically, leaving Smeele a quadriplegic. Through writing his memoir, Owning It, Smeele made peace with his new life, writes Kelly Dennett.
Over the course of about seven years Brad Smeele tapped out 500,000 words, by gripping a lightweight stylus in his mouth and pointing it at letters on a screen.

"It was before Apple had included the swipe-to-text [feature] on their keyboards," says Smeele. "Initially I was like a woodpecker, pecking away at the screen, doing individual letters at a time, but part of the way in they added the swipe-to-text. That probably doubled my word count per minute, and it was a lot easier on my neck as well."

Smeele has been on bed rest for six months owing to multiple surgeries he's had this year, but the day we chat over the phone he's had the opportunity to sit in his wheelchair for a few hours. He's looking forward to being able to celebrate the launch of his first book, Owning It: The Ride That Changed My Life, and has a tour and some speaking engagements later this year.

READ MORE:
* Five important reading and writing questions for Kaya Wilson
* 'I had something to prove.' Travelling the world solo in a wheelchair with nothing but a backpack and a guitar
* How Lenny Kravitz 'kind of blew it' during first meeting with ex Lisa Bonet

Even after a thorough edit by publisher Allen & Unwin, Smeele's account of his life before and after a wakeboarding accident left him a quadriplegic is close to 600 pages. By contrast, most published books are about half that, and about 80,000 words. Smeele's manuscript was the longest draft the publisher had ever seen.

"I certainly didn't intend on writing half a million words," says Smeele. "I think it's more the fact I didn't have the vision of how exactly to structure the book and what detail was needed and what wasn't. Because of the first person, present tense angle, it was very hard to summarise. It kind of just ended up being a brain dump of my entire life story.

"The whole process, I think, was part of the healing."

In July 2014 Smeele was living at Lake Ronix in Florida and attempting a unique trick on the wakeboard - a double backflip. But the stunt went terribly wrong when Smeele landed on a ramp, head and shoulders first.

The 27-year-old was flown to hospital where he underwent a nine-hour surgery, but Smeele quickly learned the news wasn't good. His C4 vertebrae was shattered, and he was paralysed in all four limbs. Smeele writes candidly about oscillating between setting his sights on walking again, and contemplating suicide.

Returning to New Zealand, though, Smeele found energy from conquering a series of firsts: getting back onto a boat, getting into a pool, and eventually returning to visit the US. He's grown a large following on social media and has become a motivational speaker.

Just a year after his accident Smeele began jotting down everything that had happened, consistently writing off and on until Allen & Unwin approached him in 2018 with a book deal. They offered to hire him a ghostwriter, but Smeele, who once prided himself on being a builder, making ramps and rails for the sport he once enjoyed, chose to go it alone.

"I used to love standing back and admiring and having that sense of pride after completing a project like that," says Smeele. "And I thought that was lost for me after my accident, until I got into this idea of writing a book. I thought, this is something I can build."

Contract in the bag, he picked up his pace again - but deadlines came and went and Smeele was still writing.

"Once I went past 100,000 words, which was past what my contract was for, then I started communicating with [editors], 'this has got a bit longer than I expected'".

It wasn't easy. You'd be forgiven for thinking reliving the aftermath of the accident would have been the hardest part, but Smeele says it was recalling his youth as an able-bodied person that was toughest.

"It was a lot of living in the past. One thing that I talk about in the book is, that's where depression comes from. I basically forced myself into depression by writing all of that. That was a real struggle, I had to work really hard to put myself into the frame of mind that I was in, in those moments, because I'm not writing it as me now, I'm writing it as me at that time. That was a challenge... reliving all the things I'd lost, and everything I'd f..... up.

"[But] it gave the editors the full story to then be able to whittle it down into what they felt was important."

Smeele is most excited for people to read everything that happens after the accident - that's where the lessons are. But the first half of Smeele's story, his life pre-accident, serves as an important backdrop for those lessons.

That life was an extraordinary one. As a professional wakeboarder Smeele appeared to have the world at his feet. He'd won world titles and was travelling the globe, surrounded by glamorous photographers, movie-makers and athletes.

While some may read his former escapades as a humble brag - at one point Smeele guessed he'd bedded 100 women - over the phone he's reflective, and speaks carefully and thoughtfully about why he included such detail. At that point in time, rightly or wrongly, those were the things that were important to him, he ventures.

He included it all, he says, because he wanted to show a life in contrast, and he felt he had the support of his editors, who he relied on to tell him if he'd gone too far.

The telling of these intimacies serves as a plot device as well - from living a very adventurous, physical life, and the value he placed on that, to losing all physical ability. It's hard to blame him then, as he writes frankly about his fears that he'd never be intimate or have a relationship again.

Sex aside, Smeele is just as forthcoming about the humiliation of it all: erections in front of physiotherapists, and toileting mishaps, shall we say, in front of an audience.

"I have moments of being nervous around [the detail]," Smeele admits. "It was something I kind of had to weigh up in my mind, how much do I want to dial this down, or censor this story. It's a very open telling, but at the end of the day the book is called Owning It, and that's the whole thing - I need to own the life I lived before the injury, even if I may be judged for it."

That said, Smeele thinks people are interested in the intricacies of his current reality, too.

"One of the questions I get the most, when people aren't afraid to ask [is], can you still have sex? What can you feel? What can you not feel? So with it being quite an open and honest book, I wanted to include that stuff. It's part of this journey."

Eight years on from that day on the lake, Smeele, now 35, says he's accepted what happened, but to get there he's learned what acceptance is.

"I'm definitely in a better place mentally," says Smeele. "I now have a better way of processing [the lows] and understanding what's causing it. In general, I'm in a good place.

"Life isn't easy as a quadriplegic...The struggles and the shit I have to deal with still sucks, but I'm much better equipped to deal with it. I'm at peace with a lot of it.

"I think there are loads of little nuggets of wisdom in [the book] that people can apply to their own lives, that you don't have to be in a wheelchair to [learn them]."

Owning It: The Ride That Changed My Life (Allen & Unwin) is out now. RRP: $39.99.

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The half a million words that helped give Brad Smeele some peace

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In 2014 professional wakeboarder Brad Smeele had it all - a career, success, women, and a lakeside home in sunny Florida. That all changed when a water trick failed catastrophically, leaving Smeele a quadriplegic. Through writing his memoir, Owning It, Smeele made peace with his new life, writes Kelly Dennett.

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Julia will bring her keynote speaking, workshops, business courses and professional development training to you - either online or in person.
Teams need to connect and stay inspired. Distance and time are no barriers.
Let's talk about you and your people. Julia can create a fantastic LIVE online or in-person experience just for you!

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Julia will bring her keynote speaking, workshops, business courses and professional development training to you - either online or in person. Teams need to connect and stay inspired. Distance and time are no barriers. Let's talk about you and your people. Julia can create a fantastic LIVE online or in-person experience just for you!