Get out of your comfort zone, develop new relationships and take your destiny into your own hands. That was the message UVI students heard at the St. Croix campus orientation Tuesday from motivational keynote speaker James Amps III, who pushed and prodded the students to let college be a transformative experience.
After words of inspiration and encouragement and a challenge to perform delivered by UVI President David Hall, Amps took command of the stage. With a bit of R ‘n’ B on the stereo, Amps got everyone clapping and began his academic sermon telling everyone to stand up, hug three people and tell them "you have an opportunity to make a difference."
Author of “Speaking To Excel," Amps is the founder of the A.M.P.S. Entrepreneurship and Leadership Institute and has given motivational talks to more than 550 worldwide corporate and professional audiences. Amps works with college students and adults, sharing ways they can develop innovative strategies needed for success in an unpredictable world.
To get the most out of college, Amps said, don’t think of the experience just as a way to get a job, but as a way to build new relationships, develop skills and talents and prepare for opportunity.
"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared," he said.
People like routine and the familiar, he said. Left to their own, they tend to socialize with people from the same race and backgrounds as themselves, and do the same things in the same way, again and again. If you go to church regularly, you probably sit in the same place every time and take affront if someone new takes your spot, he said. But it is by doing things differently and developing new relationships that you will get to do what you’ve never done before and create opportunities you never had before, he said.
One of the original high school football “Titans” portrayed in the movie, “Remember the Titans,” Amps recalled how his school in Alexandria, Va., was abruptly combined with another school, suddenly bringing black and white athletes together on a single football team. At first there was a lot of animosity and resentment as athletes, both black and white, who had been shoe-ins on their old teams now had to fight for their new positions. But Coach Herman Boone told them they would get up at 2 a.m. and run to the cemetery for drills every day until they were a united team.
"On the fifth day, we were one team," he said, emphasizing how forming new relationships made everyone on the team stronger. He urged the students to learn not only to what their teachers said in class, but to learn about them, who they were, what they experienced and develop enduring relationships with them. And he urged them to take their studies seriously, from beginning to end.
"Everybody is dressed the same way at graduation, so why are you different when it comes to finding the job you want?" he said. "It comes down to your relationships. And in this economy, corporations can choose whoever they want; so when it comes to two people—one with a 3.5 grade point average versus a person with a 2.5—who are they going to choose?"
A lot of students really do not start focusing on doing their very best until junior year, he said. But it is important to develop your skills, talents and abilities to the fullest, from the beginning, he said.
At the end, he had everyone put their hands together and look at their palms.
"Your destiny is in your hands," he said.
