Atlanta Business Attorney, Dave Walker, a member of the Grady Talks/Talk About Your Future team, instructs the Grady High class on the nature of relationships. He provides a great way to look at your daily interactions with others. He says you need to build up characters in your life that give you positive energy. You can avoid negative energy and stay out of trouble, by minimizing time with people who bring you down and letting the people around you know what your story is.

If you build up a cast of characters in your life while you are still in high school, you will have an easier time of it later on. Build relationships with the adults you meet while you are young. Give them positive energy and they will care about you and help you when you need them.

Grady Talks is a project that is owned by a new start up non-profit organization called, “Talk About Your Future, Inc.”. Last week, we put out a press release announcing our new website, gradytalks.org. Wow, what a response! We got picked up by media organizations across the country. If you do a Google search on “Talk About Your Future, Inc.” you will see our results.

We’ve also filed for official 501c3 status with the government. If we receive the designation, you will be allowed to make a tax-deductible donation to our organization. Here is how we described Talk About Your Future, Inc. in the filing: 

TAYF is a Georgia non-profit corporation in good standing, which has been and will beoperated exclusively for charitable purposes, particularly educational purposes and combatingjuvenile delinquency. TAYF provides mentoring and career counseling to urban high schoolstudents, with an emphasis upon at-risk populations. TAYF’s two principal initiatives are: (1)a series of motivational talks given by business, civic and political leaders, as well as celebritiesand athletes, and (2) career coaching in small group sessions and workshops. Today, TAYFoperates a pilot program at Grady High School, an urban high school in the City of Atlantapublic school system. TAYF is presently funded by donations of board members and individualdonors. TAYF is seeking an exemption under Section 501(c)(3) to facilitate the solicitationof charitable gifts, which would allow TAYF to expand its operations to other City of Atlantapublic schools. For more information about TAYF, see http://gradytalks.org. 

TAYF aims to give Hope, Guidance, Inspiration, Motivation, Direction and Connectionsto high school students and show them the possibility of moving forward in directions they neverdreamed possible. Far too many students are not sufficiently engaged enough in school to stayafter the legal drop-out age of sixteen. Many young students have had no meaningful or positiveexposure to the world they are about to enter and as a result do not see their own possibilities.Our program aims to open up that broader world to them, and help them make decisions andchoices now that will set them on a path to fuller and more productive lives in the future. 

TAYF began as small volunteer effort by a parent to provide free career coaching to highschool students, and has evolved into a weekly speaker series featuring an impressive list ofcorporate leaders, celebrities and professional athletes. The consistent message from the speakersis: “Find something that you love to do and are good at, and make that your future.” 

Thespeaker series kicked off in September 2010 with basketball superstar, Chris Webber, talkingto a packed auditorium of 300 Grady High School freshmen about achieving their dreams.Public Broadcasting Atlanta’s recording of Chris’s talk is available HERE. 

Other speakers includerepresentatives from a wide variety of prominent companies, organizations and institutions suchas The Home Depot, WSB-TV, Chick-fil-A, Turner Studios, Georgia Tech and the CDC, as wellas leading law firms and other professionals.

Yesterday on Meet the Press there was a very relevant discussion about education.  I wish we could introduce Grady Talks to this panel. 

On the show Bill Bennett, Former Sec. of Education,  says, “We need to get adults involved in the child’s world”.   Tim Shiver, Chairman of The Special Olympics, says, “We can teach children to be optimistic and persistent.  He asks, “What would it take for kids to leave the school inspired?”.   Tavis Smiley, NPR Host, says “Kids need to know how to think critically for themselves” and Donna Shalala, former Sec. of Health and Human Services,  says “Students need to know how to absorb new knowledge”. 

Grady Talks is a volunteer effort which endeavors to link urban public high school students with business professionals, in order to ignite the passion needed to develop a healthy life. This includes providing opportunities for these students to succeed through connections with business professionals, creating a plan to help students define success while encouraging them to follow their dreams and passions. The goal of Grady Talks is to provide every student in urban Atlanta Schools the chance to engage professionals in any business field and hear important stories of lessons learned by the great minds in the business world. For more information visit www.gradytalks.org

Recently, Genie Sockel spoke about her career path to kick off a series of 18 talks scheduled at Grady High this year. She talked about how she went to Yale Law school and made a transition to creating a sensitivity training company.

The students seemed to really respond to her inspirational message and many chose to send her thank you notes to express their feelings.  Here are some excerpts from the notes that Genie received from the students:

1. “You convinced me that you have to follow your dream.  I was absolutely inspired by your presentation.”
    
2. “As you presented, every word you said was meaningful.”
    
3. “You helped me put my future into perspective. You showed us when you said just because you went to college for law,  you still changed your career path.”
    
4. “Your presentation has motivated me to take more control of my life and career path.  I admire your hard work and it makes me want to work even harder.”
    
5. “I did learn something…thank you for coming on short notice.”
    
6. “You made me realize that through work and perseverance, you can achieve anything.” 
    
7. “I love you, you are awesome.”
    
8. “I really took what you said into consideration.”
    
9. “Thank you for being an inspiration and teaching us something new….thank you for bringing out important information about networking, discrimination, and tools that can get us through life.” 
    
10. “You taught me “Akamai” which I think is cool.”
     
11. “You have inspired me and releaved stress.  Now, I’m not worried about zig-zagging and changing my major or career path.”
     
12. “I have learned a few key tips to find my goal in life.” 
     
13. “You are good people!”

The entire talk can be viewed here:

Genie Sockel: Being Your Akamai Self from Grady Talks on Vimeo.

Experienced Lawyer, Genie Sockel, owner of Akamai Sensitivity Training (akamaisensitivitytraining.com) talks to a class at Atlanta’s Grady High School about her career and the student’s future. Genie shares her experiences with the students and asks them to think of the benefits make a good impression on people and avoiding unintended offenses due to a lack of cultural sensitivity. She explains what it means to understand your own personal “Smarts” and to use your “Smartness” to leverage improvements in other parts of your life.

http://bit.ly/nmnYdu

Today we post a new video of yesterday’s talk by Genie Sockel which she titles, Being Your Akamai Self. Genie explains that Akamai means Smart in the sense that your smarts are your strengths. The short version of the talks is posted below. To find the full length talk, follow this link to our Vimeo Page here.

In this short clip, Genie teaches an important life lesson using dating as an example. Do you have a similar story you might share that happened in your life?