On Wednesday, July 17, Catholic Central’s Director of Diversity, Student Engagement, and Community Outreach, Chris Okoye ‘14, spoke to young interns at DreamTek Consulting’s summer event, celebrating them for their achievements and discussing what it means to be a leader in the community. 

DreamTEK is a consulting agency in Detroit dedicated to helping young people from metro Detroit succeed in the workforce by teaching them valuable skills and trades and helping them secure employment. 

The organization recently opened a creative building specializing in fashion, creative design, beauty, technology, esports, and other trades in collaboration with over 20 small businesses that are also passionate about exposing our youth to different jobs.

The event was held at Detroit’s Riverside Marina and attracted more than 220 attendees. The purpose was to celebrate summer interns for their hard work and motivate them to continue on their path of success.

Okoye, author of Extreme Gratitude Leads To Happiness and Extreme Self Awareness Leads To Happiness spoke to interns about self-awareness, getting to know yourself better, and learning your strengths and weaknesses as it applies to life and the workforce.

He explained that everyone has things they need to work on and develop, but it’s important to be grateful for the blessings God has already given you. He encouraged interns to focus on getting better, set daily goals, control the controllable, accept accountability, and be faithful over few so God can make you rule over many (Matthew 25:23), emphasizing the importance of enduring and embracing the process because God rewards you at the end (Galatians 6:9).

"Extreme gratitude is about maximizing, using, and leveraging all that God has given you before asking for more and realizing that everything you need to be happy and successful is already right in front of you. You just have to be grateful enough to realize it,” Okoye stated.