Affect Your World
by Bert Oliva
Yesterday was my first event launching our 2015 Belizean Tour. We are speaking to the youth and adults of the country to empower them and give them tools to get to the next steps of their lives. When we were leaving the hotel in the morning, a person stopped me and told me we were being too loud and had a really negative vibe. Instead of getting into the elevator with him, I chose to wait a moment and take the next one. That pause enabled me to run into my friend’s son, whom I got to have an amazing conversation with that left both of us motivated.
We then got to the auditorium early, but still just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. Our sound for our videos wouldn’t work, our projector stopped working, our PowerPoint kept crashing…it was stressful to say the least, and I had every excuse to just get frustrated and let circumstances affect my energy and mood. However, instead, I consciously chose to just stay positive and go with the flow.
And you know what? Despite all of the delays and problems, the workshop was a complete success. It was fun! We laughed, we danced, we connected. It was a great way to launch this year’s tour. And all of that could have been different had I allowed myself to get frustrated and upset.
That’s one of the biggest messages of this tour and biggest messages for life, at least for me. Instead of allowing the world and circumstances to affect you, choose to consciously affect your world instead. By taking a moment that morning, I got to have a beautiful conversation. That reminder of that lesson of choosing my actions, stayed with me throughout the day when everything that could go wrong went wrong at the first presentation and helped me remember to keep choosing to stay positive.
So today, pause before you react. Choose your actions. See the positive in everything that you do, and enjoy the ride.
Live Life,
Bert Oliva
Quote This:
“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.” –George Bernard Shaw
MAY