relations for many decades and one of
the things that I keep finding is that
people judge success on having a good
leaving certificate a first-class
honours degree a master’s or even a PhD
but success is something that is
completely different to each individual
person it’s a personal thing so what
success means to you to you and to you
is something that will be completely
different I believe success is about
finding a healthy balance in life that
is right for you finding that balance
it’s ongoing it’s a process it doesn’t
end because it’s not the fact that you
have an end goal and you achieve it and
suddenly you have a calm peaceful
meaningful life and because of the fact
that it’s ongoing if you will evolve and
it will change education is one of the
keys to that process education is what
helps us to achieve that one thing we
want to do in our lives so that it can
be a success for us and finding that
balance will be very different so along
the way for each individual we will
acquire new skills new learning and the
good thing about education is that it is
open to people from all backgrounds
there’s no limitations and it allows us
to expand our human mind with knowledge
so what it does with education and
knowing that we are going to be
successful it means that our dreams can
become a reality and sometimes our
dreams don’t happen and the reason they
don’t is because we don’t believe enough
in ourselves we tend to sell ourselves
short because we believe that we won’t
reach that what that goal is to be and a
good friend of mine recently told me
when I was telling her what I was
preparing for and she said her motto is
if you dream us you can make us and if
we look
when we start with our dreams and
aspirations they start from a very young
age I’ve a nine-year-old daughter Anna
her dream is that she’s going to work
for NASA and she’s going to be the first
woman on Mars to prove it she has a
solar system in her room for the last
two years when she decided that this was
her dream each year it comes up and even
Santa now knows what needs to be there
to add to that so that each night she
can focus she knows what her dream is
she knows the path that she’s going to
get there that’d probably be twists and
turns and few diversions and probably a
few bumps along the way but if she
continues to maintain her belief it’s a
possibility yes she will go through
education and she knows the route that
she wants to take and it would be
important that she attains those skills
as she goes through education but it’s
not just education it’s also going to be
the social skills that she needs to
acquire along the way so it equally is
the role of pollen eyes her parents to
assist with that side and the educators
to help her along the way in relation to
what she needs to achieve academically
so education and we go back to it being
a process we start educating from when
we were very very young to the time that
we start learning to feed ourselves when
we’re learning to walk and each time as
we evolve we’re learning new skills
socially but on the job in the school
college format as part of life they say
that in the first five years of your
life you learn more than you will learn
for the rest of your life so if we take
it back to that that means that at that
time during that time that’s when a
child becomes the person they’re going
to be it’s when they learn there so many
of their social skills their empathy
about relationships
boundaries and we know the phone with a
young child trying to learn how to push
boundaries they’re very good at us so
when we look at that and take it into
context as we progress some interesting
facts to share with you this morning the
good news is that there are experts who
stated that if you’re 60 years old in
reasonably good health the good news is
that you are going to reach the big 100
the not so good news is that a result of
this it means we’re going to have to
work longer so as a result of working
longer what they say is that we’re going
to take some time out we’re going to
have recuperation we’re going to be up
skilling ourselves we may even have some
career changes along the way because we
now will be working until we’re in our
80s so the traditional life model that
we’ve all known that the experts have
said is that from 15 to 21 you’re an
early adulthood so that’s full time
education from 21 to 65 that’s the
career move potentially across three
companies then from 65 to 80 retirement
on the self funded pension so as a
result of that lifestyle change what’s
this going to mean for education is a
huge shift in how we educate ourselves
both on the job because we’ll be
developing goes back to recuperation to
upskilling ourselves and all the changes
that new advanced technology and to be
fair even sitting here today there’s
probably technology we don’t know that
will even be developed that could be
here in less than five years so if we
take it back to education education is
not just the traditional route not
saying there’s anything wrong with third
level institutions but it’s open to us
as individual it’s not for each person
to go that route but there are other
options available and here in the mid
west of Ireland were very fortunate we
have University Limerick we have
Limerick and truly Institutes of
nology our education and training boards
the local development companies and we
have a host of apprenticeship programs
we also have the midwest regional skills
forum which was founded in 2015 and this
was part of the irish government’s
national strategy skills strategy which
was going to bring employers and the
educators together to look at what are
the emerging skill needs in each region
because there’s nine regional skills for
in ireland so when we look at that and
all the different opportunities that we
have there’s so many different paths
that we can take they don’t all have to
go straight from A to B as I said there
can be many that have diversions you can
take a long route it really depends what
success is for you what do you want to
do and how do you want to get there and
if I look at someone who’s taken rather
a long path to get to what they wanted
to achieve want to share with use my
brother Neil academically Neil thought
he’d never finished school leaving cert
on I think everybody breathes a sigh of
relief so he decided because we were
farming that he was going to farm and my
mom stopped him one day and she said why
are you doing farming he said because
that’s why not that’s what we do and we
have a farm I you know dad’s not going
to be there forever he’s going to want
to step down someday and she said but
why are you doing it and he’d never
thought about that because he wanted to
that was it had to be done and she said
what do you really want to do with your
life is it farming and he said of course
it is off he went and he did an
interview because he had to do in
agriculture course and my dad got a call
to say he did really well but he
actually talked about horses for the
whole hour he was in there and this is
specialization for pig farming don’t
really know it’s my moment back to her
conversation
and so they think have you thought about
this and he went I till want to let you
down I’d love to work an IT because he
was always breaking our toys and putting
them together not so successfully
sometimes so he decided then he was
farming by day and with a government
body called force he did nighttime
courses in IT so after a year he then
took up a job as a junior person with
NIT he progressed through that and
continued on his nighttime programs
again the study but at least he was
doing something he enjoyed for the first
time today he’s a senior IT manager in
an international security IT firm he
works side by side with peoples who
academically are much more successful in
that sense of what he was they have
masters and degrees he took a longer
route but he got to where his dream was
sometimes it takes a little help from
somebody else and whoever said moms know
best so if we look at that and look at
it can be achievable it all depends on
what route you want to take and if i go
back to anna and her dream to be on Mars
the other day we were talking and she
was really excited NASA have just
announced that they have a new program
Mars program they’re going to put people
on Mars by 2030 to 20 30 50 she’s there
she’s getting ready her dream can become
a reality so the fact that she goes to
sleep at night looking at the solar
system she can now believe actually one
day I will be there so it’s up to each
of us so if there’s one things that I’d
like you to take away with you this
morning it’s this ask yourselves what is
success for me and when you’ve answered
that ask yourself how do I make that
happen
and then when you’ve vast answered you
know what your path is what you need to
do to be successful remembering it
different for each individual person
that is here so to be very different for
you for you and for you thank you [Music]