Joe Chavez, the brutally honest motivational speaker, impacted the Regis Jesuit community on Diversity Day with his “Wear a Cup Approach to Life” workshop. Chavez began his speech with humor, which immediately hooked the audience in the Boys Division gymnasium. He went on to talk about his early childhood and the specific events that impacted and shaped him throughout his life. The first event he talked about was his dad’s death when he was two months old. He then proceeded to describe the horrible situations that he was brought up in, and yet continued to approach these topics with a light-hearted outlook. But Chavez, is an optimistic man who makes best out of even the toughest situations.

Mr. Chavez’s main focus was to notify the students of Regis Jesuit that their actions and decisions in life impact more than just themselves. When he was in high school, Chavez got in a fight and was arrested. As the police officer was escorting him to the cop car, his high school principal told him the story of two sons with a drunk and abusive father. The sons grew up, one becoming just like the father, and the other became a loving and caring man. When both were asked why they are who they are, they answered the same way: “With a father like mine, why wouldn’t I be like this?”  

Chavez’s humor and honesty changed the way the people who impacted by his words looked at life. He ended his speech with “Be careful of who you hate, and what you refuse to forget, because you will become what you hate and will do what you don’t forget.”

Every student who attended his workshop praised his ability to capture the crowd with witty humor and brutal honesty through his life experiences and outlook on life.