Today’s Class: February 24th, 2017
Today’s Hope Life Skills class guest was Derek Viveiros, the Athletic Director at Bristol Community College.
The Life Skills class host was Yael Torres.
“Becoming successful,
finding a job that we look forward to every day, doesn’t happen quickly or easily”
Derek said at the beginning of his personal story. “After several months in my first job, I realized I couldn’t see myself doing it for long. I didn’t like it. So, I thought about what I really wanted to do and I realized I liked coaching baseball. I reached out to a few people in my network who proceeded to get me an opportunity for my first coaching job.
My network definitely helped“.
Derek spoke about a series of coaching jobs in different parts of the United States. He found himself working in a job he looked forward to every day. And, then, he encountered adversity. “One day, the College in Iowa where I was coaching eliminated my coaching position. I was out of a job!” Derek then spoke about dealing with adversity. He informed the class that people frequently confront adversity, failure and hardship during their lives. Derek acknowledged he faced the challenge of losing a good job; it wasn’t anticipated nor easy to deal with. “Adversity provides lessons.
Adversity can make you better and stronger. It can also open new doors of opportunity.
It did for me!
Once again, I contacted people in my network and they told me the Athletic Director’s position at Bristol Community College was open. I applied and find myself in
a new job I never considered and love going to work everyday.”
Derek finished his story by speaking about the
benefits of his first internship.
“You don’t always make a lot of money but you learn valuable lessons which can affect your career plans. An internship can reveal what you like and don’t like for a job. One of the best lessons I learned in an early internship was I couldn’t see myself doing this kind of job for the rest of my life. I decided to look in a different direction.“
When the bell rang to end the class, Derek stayed to network with a few students,
exchanging business cards,
to add each other to their personal networks.