‘You are greater than those things that hold you back’

When in fourth grade, Michael Cuestas reached the pinnacle of success for elementary school: He won the school spelling bee.

Cuestas weathered the contest, despite the doubts instilled by those, including his friends, who told him he couldn’t do it.

A teacher, however, made the difference, saying, “Never let anyone tell you that you are less than because you are greater than what they say.”

But in fifth grade, his life came crashing down, when he started cheating on assignments and then got caught shoplifting and was taken home in handcuffs in the back of a police car.

“I go from this high in fourth grade to this low in fifth grade of cheating and stealing,” Cuestas told a crowd of more than 450 at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center Thursday morning. “It had to do with the people I chose to surround myself with.

“They say you become the five closest people to you. You pick up on their habits, the things they like and they don’t like. That’s why it’s so important to choose the people you surround yourself with, people who lift you up and encourage you. As a leader, it starts with you. You have to see your greatness first before you can help anyone else.”

The students were part of a a student council regional conference, hosted this year by Iola High School. Students from 32 schools in 27 communities gathered at the Bowlus to learn leadership skills they could take back to their schools. Cuestas served as guest speaker for the event, using a blend of personal stories, humor and songs to connect to youth with a message of empowerment. In a second session, Cuestas worked with students on developing leadership skills.

Cuestas grew up in poverty and lived at times in a homeless shelter, a center for victims of domestic violence and even a tent. He grew up to become successful in business and married his high school sweetheart but never thought he’d become a motivational youth speaker.

He punctuated stories about his past with audience participation skits. At one point he brought four students to the stage to illustrate the spelling bee that was such an important part of his youth, but made the students dance off the stage when they lost. Iola Middle School seventh-grade student Brigham Folk elicited laughs from the audience as he hammed it up with only a little encouragement from Cuestas. He pretended to have a crush on a competitor and gave her a little wink — or at least tried to. But apparently he was too distracted to spell properly and had to dance off the stage, along with the other students.

BETWEEN the humorous stories, Cuestas offered serious life lessons.

Children in middle and high school will make decisions over the next four to six years that will shape their lives for 40 to 60 years, he said. It’s impossible to know what the future will look like, he said.

“You can only make choices based on what you have now, based on your circumstances, based on your past and your future,” he said.

“But don’t think that you have to have your life figured out right now. Things happen to you that you don’t plan on. I challenge you to make wise choices and see yourself as greater than those things that hold you back. Make the best choice you can right now.”

Even bad choices can usually be redeemed, he said. He told them he failed to earn enough credits to graduate high school “for the most gangsta reason”: He skipped classes to teach himself how to play piano. Years later, he met a teen who had been expelled from high school but was attending an alternative school to earn dual credit for both high school and college. Cuestas realized he had other options and went on to graduate college with a degree in business administration and worked for several Fortune 500 companies, as well as a vice president for an investment firm.

“You were created for a purpose,” he told them. “You have worth. You have value. And you are greater than those things that hold you back.”