Motivational speaker "the Rev' John McMahon presented three motivational sessions to students at the Dimboola Memorial Secondary College on Wednesday.

McMahon spoke to both male and female students over three sessions throughout the day, on his third visit to DMSC.

Throughout the presentation "the Rev' drew upon his own life experiences and outlined his journey which brought him from his native Northern Ireland to Australia via Scotland and included bullying at both primary and secondary schools and his reactions to this. This resulted in him leaving school early and making some choices that saw his life go completely off track.

An offer from a church youth worker to mentor him opened the door that eventually led him to take up his current occupation, leading him away from his destructive lifestyle.

After encouraging McMahon to address a group of young people, his mentor predicted that "I have worked with hundreds of people - you are going to work with thousands."

This has proven to be correct as McMahon now travels throughout Australia giving motivational presentations, using his love for motorcycles to engage his primary audience which is mostly boys.

His nickname of "the Rev' was gained when he was a chaplain to MotoGP and it also highlights his love of riding fast bikes.

McMahon encourages young adults to pursue their passion and, in order to achieve this, they need to have long-term goals and be committed to a strategy to achieve them.

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"When you know what your purpose is, your life takes on a whole other meaning, and when you connect your purpose to something bigger than yourself, that's when the magic happens."

The final message from the session was respect and authority, highlighting his concept that the more respect you give, the more you will receive in return.

The school thanks Des and Robyn Lardner from the Dimboola Community Pharmacy for providing sponsorship for this event and Lyndon Kuhne for making arrangements for the visit.

After spending the day speaking at DMSC McMahon conducted an evening session at Nexus at Horsham.