Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom visited Millennium on Jan. 29 to speak to the school.

History teacher Ken Brown said the idea of Newsom speaking to the civics class started with a unit on the California high speed railway. One of the students, junior Schuyler Fink said that she could get her cousin, Newsom, to speak on the subject.

“She pursued it 100 percent on her own,” Brown said. “She texted him and worked it out, and she set it up and got it all going.”

The planning of the event happened the week-of, making it incredibly short notice for everyone, Brown said.

“He initially talked about basic leadership qualities and a very inspirational message of encouraging students to show initiative and to take risks,” Brown said.

Newsom has 15 businesses in the private sector of California and over 1,000 employees. He emphasized that the world needs people that take initiative, regardless of educational background.

“He talked about four of the greatest leaders of our modern generation who were most influential when they were in jail, and how you don’t need a title and position of leader to lead,” Brown said.

Mahatmas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Václav Havel were the four leaders. To back up his point, Newsom challenged the audience to name an influential thing that Mandela did while he was the president.

“Titles and offices restrict what people can do,” Brown said. “It is people without those restrictions that have the biggest impact.”

Junior Cassie Fox-Mount said that she loved his point about failure and learning from mistakes.

“In Piedmont there is this idea that failure is the most terrible thing, where in reality it is probably one of the most helpful things,” Fox-Mount said. “If you learn from your mistakes and take calculated risks to try things, then failure should just be a way to learn.”

Brown said that Newsom was able to have an impact on his students because he is very relatable as a politician. He talked about that fact that he was a C student in high school and had dyslexia, and the only reason he got into college was because of a baseball scholarship.

Newsom said that one doesn’t have to be something to do something, really emphasizing the importance of students taking initiative.

“It was a great experience having someone with that high of power come to such a small school like ours,” senior Cameron Polk said. “It’s just incredible.”

To show his views on gay rights, Newsom faked a proposal to a student, but instead of asking for her hand in marriage, he asked for her hand in a civil union to show that there is a difference.

“I really like his views on gay rights along with the decriminalization of marijuana,” Polk said. “He is very young and understands where our thoughts are coming from.”