Everything you will ever need to succeed is already built in you. But before you build your dreams, your life results, plans and your life journey, you need to know that the foundation of it all is YOU. You are more important than your dreams and results.

Activator, Tshepang Mokgatla, held his audience of 150 young delegates from the greater Gauteng region captive with his words of wisdom and encouragement at the Raymond Ackerman Young Leaders Engagement held at the University of Johannesburg earlier this month.

 Mokgatla scooped the opportunity to deliver the written speech which he submitted to the Budding Speaker Facebook Competition against record number of 50 entries.

The Raymond Ackerman Young Leaders Engagement is an event which aims to provide a networking and discussion forum for early entrepreneurs and business owners.

“By creating a platform for peers to share their success stories, we want to encourage optimism about the role savvy young leaders can play in shaping a prosperous South Africa for all,” says fellow Activator, Joel Mokone, Managing Director at JP Republic Communications and a co-organiser of The Raymond Ackerman Young Leaders Engagement.

Topical issues under discussion at the event included the impact of entrepreneurship as a driver of social transformation, the role of women in leadership and the importance of the youth’s engagement with policy-making. The green economy and the increasing need for a collaborative approach also came under the spotlight.

Other speakers were Zanele Mabaso, CEO and Founder of The Young Social Entrepreneurs Academy, Johnny Muteba, Founder & CEO of Creative South Africa and Ashanti Mbanga, Miss Earth 2013/14.

“Mokgatla’s speech was chosen because of its clarity of reasoning, the logical sequence of the writer’s ideas and the relevance to the theme and appropriateness of Young Leaders Engagement,” says Mokone.

“The reception of his speech was overwhelming. It challenged us to take action and ownership of our destiny. It was powerful in that it addressed what young people longed to hear from a fellow young leader.  His speech was not just words but inspiring words that can be translated into purposeful actions. The audience was blown away. His speech created the atmosphere of “I matter and I am going for my dreams, today”.”

Mokgatla is the founder of the Be28 Movement, an initiative dedicated to supporting the development of habits of success among the youth by repeating a given action for 28 days.

“Be28 is based on the presupposition that it takes 21 days to consciously create a habit and 28 days to entrench it fully so that it becomes an automatic way of life. The idea is to give young people constructive tools to become more self-driven and to counteract the widespread culture of entitlement which is so disempowering,” Mokgatla explains.

“I am very grateful that the Raymond Ackerman Young Leaders Academy afforded me the opportunity to express my ideas on success to a group of like-minded individuals. This event showed me more than ever that our attitude is the greatest factor in determining our future success and in order to succeed we need to be open to learning.”

Tshepang Mokgatla speech can be read below.

The most valuable resource for your success is you. You have, within you, the power to determine whether you succeed or not, You Matter. This is one significant thing that many inspirational orators and authors always neglect when they speak or write about success and how to achieve it. I believe that understanding that you matter is the foundation of the very dream that you want to achieve and the core of the life you want to lead. You are unique and because of this, you are powerful beyond measure.

Everything you will ever need to succeed is already built in you. But before you build your dreams, your life results, plans and your life journey, you need to know that the foundation of it all is YOU. You are more important than your dreams and results.

In as much as we have a lot of similarities we are not the same. One needs to rid oneself of the illusion that we are the same. The thought that we are is the most demotivating factor because you end up down trodden as you analyse others success or results (mostly material gain) at face value without knowing the effort that was put in in order to be where they are or have what they have.

Be more deliberate about how you do things in your life, like using words that are simple to understand in your life planning. For example: do not “create” goals, plan Results and ensure that your actions are deliberately directed to them. If you do so Success is your only option.