Stedman Graham shares secrets of success

Instead of traversing a red carpet with longtime girlfriend Oprah Winfrey, Stedman Graham trekked to a hot West Philadelphia classroom yesterday to share with high school students his secrets to success.

"How do you achieve success to the highest level?" he asked about 150 teenagers at William L. Sayre High School.

"The big answer is, you've got to be able to think."

Hailing from not only Sayre but also University City and West Philadelphia High Schools, the students were enrolled in summer enrichment programs offered by the University of Pennsylvania's Netter Center for Community Partnerships, which works for neighborhood revitalization.

The chief executive officer of a marketing and management consulting firm, Graham travels the world giving at least 100 motivational speeches a year. He also founded a nonprofit group aimed at developing leadership skills among "underserved" youths. His speech yesterday was given free, said Ira Harkavy, the center's director.

Graham is the author of 10 books, including the New York Times best-seller You Can Make It Happen and, more recently, Diversity: Leaders Not Labels.

To attain success, he said, one must have a clear concept of who one is.

"If you let other people define yourself," he said, "then you get left stuck in the box."

As an adolescent, Graham recalled, some people questioned what he could achieve. Once, when he told a neighborhood businessman he was going to college, the man replied, "You are not going to college, because your family is too stupid" - a reference, Graham said, to his two mentally challenged brothers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, that was my motivation to finish school," he told the students. "I don't know if I learned anything, but I finished."

Graham earned his bachelor's degree at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and his master's at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

He emphasized that students should take responsibility for their own development, noting that "everybody is equal because everyone has 24 hours." He then asked, "What do you do with your 24 hours?"

Graham told the students that what they love should be the foundation of their success, and asked some of them to name all the things they loved in one minute.

"I love being determined," said Shayntreese Robinson, 19.

Later on, Graham told the student - who he said looked like the singer Jennifer Hudson - that she would be successful with that attitude.

But after all the motivational talk, Graham seemed to be thrown for a loop by some unexpected questions.

"Are you going to marry Oprah?" one student asked.

"We don't know yet," he replied.