Finding Your Why – Ife Grillo Inspires Year 9s to Break the Mould
Ife Grillo, an accomplished young writer, educator, and performer visited a class of lucky Year 9s at City Academy to explore ‘Finding Your Why’ – a masterclass in creating your own personal brand. This inspiring workshop was centred around encouraging students to recognise their unique characteristics and qualities, and to think about what it is that they stand for. They got to tackle some of the big and sometimes scary questions of ‘Who am I’ and ‘What do I want to do?’, making the future feel less daunting and more exciting!
Students were motivated by Ife’s fascinating personal journey, from his early business acumen selling sweets at school, to becoming the youngest ever Vice-Chair of the British Youth Council, to gaining a place at the World Schools Debating Championships, and later winning the UK University National Poetry Championships. Furthermore, Ife has worked with some giant brands including Google and Sky to provide guidance around young people’s needs and rights – with his work taking him across 7 different countries so far! It’s no wonder then that Ife sums himself up as doing ‘a little bit of everything’. This helped to demonstrate to the students that your passions can lead you in many different directions during your career journey and that you do not have to follow a set path or rigid career ladder. Students found it inspiring to know that with lots of determination and perseverance, they too could break the mould and achieve big things
Next up we tackled the definition of success, and how it can look differently to all of us depending on what our ambitions are. To understand this, students engaged in a brief debate about whether they thought extraordinary footballer Lionel Messi was more successful, or Nobel peace-prize winner Denis Mukwege, who has saved countless lives. The next argument in this series revolved around whether students would rather have a job that they dislike, that earnt them more money – or if they would rather earn less but be in a job that they love. These tricky questions enlightened students to think about what motivates them, and what they are looking for from a future career.
To wrap-up, students reflected on what a successful future career might look like for them, for those unsure of what type of industry or role they would want it offered a chance to think about what they enjoy, such as being creative, or working in a hands-on, practical role and how they could achieve this. Students left feeling more ambitious and aspirational about what they could achieve in their futures!
