The Siegfried Maybank Leadership Program hosted its inaugural “Create Your Future” event at the University of Delaware on Nov. 15.

The event was sponsored by UD’s Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship (CEEE) and Junior Achievement of Delaware and the audience was composed of 8th-12th graders from New Castle County who want to strengthen their individual leadership, as well as their teachers and mentors and several local politicians.

Chris Word, a professional resource for The Siegfried Group in the Charlotte market, introduced the day’s first speaker, Rob Siegfried. Siegfried is the founder and CEO of The Siegfried Group, an alumnus from UD’s Class of 1981 with a double major in economics and accounting, and the chair of the advisory board for UD’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.

Word said that the event was designed to bring future leaders together. As a thought exercise, he had student close their eyes and visualize themselves as successes.

“In order to be the dream, you have to see it, you have to say it and you have to believe it,” Word said. “Those three steps will get you there.”

Siegfried himself then took the stage and explained his reasons for co-founding the Siegfried Maybank Leadership Program with Anthuan Maybank, a motivational speaker and Olympic gold medalist.

Siegfried said it was originally his daughter’s idea to talk to high school students and motivate them to become successful leaders, and that idea sparked the program’s creation.

The goal of the Siegfried Maybank Leadership Group is to help youth in the community to strengthen their individual leadership, which enables them to enrich their personal and professional lives now and in the future.

“Chris said, ‘Imagine yourself being successful,’” Siegfried said. “I’m saying, if you want to be successful, you have to start building individual leadership.”

He asked the audience, “What is a successful life?” Various answers rang out from around the room, answers like “Make money,” “Work hard” and “Be persistent.”

“The thing about a successful life is it starts with you,” Siegfried said. “It has to come from you. And that’s not always easy to figure out.”

Siegfried went on to explain the idea of character ethics, and their importance in leadership and success. He encouraged students to be more thoughtful, ambitious, faithful, courageous, grateful and committed – all of these things and more, he said, are necessary to leadership.

“If you want to have a successful life, you’ve got to be a successful leader,” Siegfried said. “If you want to be a successful leader, you’ve got to build character ethic.”

And the motivation to be a successful leader can come from different things, he continued.

“Sometimes you are motivated by fear, sometimes you’re motivated by hope and sometimes you’re motivated by success,” Siegfried said. “Which one do you think is the most fun? Success. But sometimes, you have to go through fear and hope to be motivated by success.”

Siegfried described success is a combination of beliefs, behaviors, and results, and attributed his success to being courageous and confident as well as persistent.

Siegfried started his own business because he wanted more freedom in his life, he said. But he also had intelligence, inspiration and ambition, and he encouraged the audience to make sure they too had the character ethics to succeed.

“If you want to be the best you can be, you’ve got to keep asking yourself what inspires you,” Siegfried said. “You still have the fear. But you go after it.”

Raphael Encarnacion, a ninth grader at Sussex Central High School, said he plans to use Siegfried’s leadership lessons to succeed in business.

“I felt that it was very informative,” Encarnacion said. “I liked hearing him talk about how to be successful.”