Bestselling author, educator and entrepreneur Stedman Graham kicked of his day at Menlo-Atherton High School earlier yesterday morning with an inspiring interactive session for staff and community members at the school’s Performing Arts Center.

Graham is apart of the Sonima Foundation, a health and wellness curriculum, which encourages students to become future leaders in hopes to help students develop their identity. As part of his connection to the Sonima Foundation, Graham visits around 70 schools nationally each year to deliver inspirational speeches to support and encourage students to fully understand themselves to have a prosperous life.

“It’s really a luxury to have an identity and to know who you are because most people are stuck and I would say that ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are followers… and slaves.” -Graham

Graham built off the question, ‘Who are you?’ because you cannot be successful unless you have rightfully defined yourself. If you do not define yourself, you have “give[n] your power over to someone else, [and] they will define you as something else.”

The main takeaway from Graham’s oration is that love is the only way you can find and understand yourself because what you love comes from the heart, rather than what society wants or says you are.

Michelle Breen, math teacher at M-A, notes, “I think it is a fantastic and inspiring day. It is a great thing when the whole M-A community, from the students to the staff can focus on what motivates them, what they love, and who we are as individuals. With a better understanding who we are as individuals, it will only make our community stronger.”

Stedman Graham is well known for his connection to Oprah Winfrey, however few know the connection to Gayle King, an M-A alumna and the co-anchor of CBS This Morning and an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.