Alicia:
Hello and welcome to the Soul of a Leader podcast, where we ignite soulful conversations with leaders. In today’s episode, Dr. Alicia and Dr. Eileen talk with Hugo Trevino about leading with resilience.

Eileen:
Hello and welcome to the Soul of a Leader podcast. Today’s guest is Hugo Trevino. Hugo is a disability specialist at the disability resource center. Hugo is a first-generation Mexican-American who earned his degree in Spanish and translation studies at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in August 2014.

Eileen:
During his undergraduate career, he studied abroad three times in Costa Rica, China, and Taiwan. His passion for education, student affairs and travel inspired him to obtain his master’s of education in international higher education in 2018 from Loyola University. Yay, Loyola.

Alicia:
Yes.

Eileen:
[crosstalk 00:01:24] alumni, so we have to say that.

Alicia:
Yes, we got to say that right?

Eileen:
Where he was able to study abroad in Vietnam and Italy. Before joining the UIC team, he was very fortunate to work for nonprofit organizations where he was able to help Latinas, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities in a multifaceted of ways, including education, healthcare, and self-advocacy to name a few.

Eileen:
This passion of service has led him to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he works with students with disabilities to make sure they have equal access to higher education and helps them achieve their full potential here at UIC and beyond. Welcome, Hugo. We’re so glad to have you here on our podcast today.

Alicia:
Yes, Hugo, what an impressive resume, and I know we didn’t even put a dent in that. So is there anything else you would like to add that maybe we can really entice those listeners to be intrigued about your life span of things you’ve accomplished?

Hugo Trevino:
Definitely. Well, once again, thank you so much, Dr. Timmons and Dr. Spurger for having me here today. It is such an honor. And then I guess to highlight some other things besides me currently working at the University of Illinois in Chicago as part of the Disability Resource Center team, I am currently also doing some side projects with PTC Therapeutics, which is an organization right now that does do medicine or clinical treatments for people with Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy. So it’s been an honor to work with them and do educational programming.

Hugo Trevino:
Outside of that, another quick thing that I would love to highlight is I do have some board memberships. I’m currently on the University of Illinois Latino/Latina Alumni Association where I am a board of directors. I also graduated and completed a fellowship with the ADA25 Advancing Leadership here in the Chicago area, which helps people with disabilities obtain even more leadership skills, which we will be talking about today.

Hugo Trevino:
Outside of that too, through the university, I am also a part of the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Latinos. I’m also part of the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of People with Disabilities in which I co-chair also one of the subcommittees. And then I’m also an academic professional for the Advisory Committee of just other academic professionals at UIC. So as you can tell, my plate is pretty full.

Hugo Trevino:
Then I also love volunteering. I need to give a big shout-out to two huge organizations, which are so close to my heart, which would be Cure SMA which is another huge organization that helps people specifically with spinal muscular atrophy. And the other one would be a smaller nonprofit that is currently also just helping people around the Chicago land area, and that would be Thumbuddy Special, which is used to help people with disabilities get durable medical equipment that oftentimes is not approved by insurance companies, which that’s super important.

Hugo Trevino:
So thank you so much for allowing me to also highlight some of the other things that I’m doing. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Eileen:
Wow. Hugo, that is amazing.

Alicia:
Yes.

Hugo Trevino:
Thank you.

Alicia:
When do you go to sleep, Hugo? I am so proud of you and so excited. I’m like, wow, what an impact that you’re making in the world. What an impact. And I can tell it is your passion just the way you just sounded it all off, and these are things that you have really, really put your heart and soul in. So I feel honored to be even talking to you.

Hugo Trevino:
Thank you so much. [crosstalk 00:05:26].

Eileen:
And I have to say, I knew Hugo for many years. And I knew when he went back to school for his masters, what a shining star he would be and I’m so honored that you’re on my show.

Alicia:
Yes.

Eileen:
I’m so happy for you making such an impact in all those areas and contributing your time, your wisdom, your love, and your energy for these very important causes. So that I’m your best fan and we are so honored to have you here. So thank you so much.

Hugo Trevino:
Well, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to talk about my path and journey to get to everywhere where I’ve been today. So thanks.

Alicia:
Yeah. So one of the questions I have for you as I was listening to your extensive background and your bio, what drives your leadership style? What is it? What gives you that drive to do? Because see, it doesn’t take an ordinary person who is an extraordinary person and you fit that for me, my definition for you, you fit the extraordinary part of it. So what drives that leadership in you?

Hugo Trevino:
I think what drives my leadership well probably has to be my disability. I think it’s one of the most visible, I guess, identities you could say about me. And so even from growing up as a child, having a disability, did make me shy at first. It was something that was very hard where people would talk about me in the third person even when I was in the room. Especially growing up, they would only talk to my parents or to my siblings, or point at me and ask what’s wrong.

Hugo Trevino:
So because of this and people just disregarding me, one of the things that ended up happening was that I quickly realized that in order for people to get to know me for who I am that I had to be a little bit more outgoing. And that was going to be one of the defense mechanisms that I had to prove to everybody that I was quote-unquote normal to everyone.

Hugo Trevino:
So as I kept growing up too, and I was still grappling with the fact that I have a severe physical disability that’s going to keep progressing, I also became very depressed. And so when I was around nine years old, my mom says that that was when I became the most depressed out of all my years of being born with this genetic disease.

Hugo Trevino:
That summer I spent it just locked indoors, not wanting to go out. And I think it was at the end of that summer where you’re getting ready to go back to school and you start feeling colder weather again here in Chicago. But I was like, “Oh, my God, I just let an entire summer…” And Chicago summers are the best, right? “Pass me by.”

Hugo Trevino:
So that’s when I was like, “Oh, my God, I can not let this ever happen again.” My disability isn’t going anywhere and if I don’t accept my disability then I am accepting depression and that’s not the life that I want it to lead. And so self-acceptance of my disability was one of the ways that I guess my leadership skills started to grow because that’s when I realized that by accepting my disability, I was accepting a huge part of my life.

Hugo Trevino:
Then from there, I could also accept that I was first-generation, that I was Latino. And then later on in life also that I would be part of the LGBT community, and accepting that was another hurdle as well. But in general, I think that one of my biggest leadership skills started growing from just self-acceptance of the fact that if I accepted who I am then that was going to give me the tools to be able to ask for help and to just shine a light on other people’s lives as well.

Eileen:
That is phenomenal at nine years old, discovering that. Shifting your thought process by yourself, by yourself to come out and just shine your light. I mean, what a story. And with that, as you grew from nine and went to school and traveled the world, okay? Traveling the world, speaking, adding your wisdom, your light, and now as a true advocate, can you share with me what drives you?

Hugo Trevino:
Definitely. So one of the things that drives me, I think also slowly growing up, was the fact that I realized from a very young age that I was different. And so I realized that me being different meant that people looked at me differently, that they treated me differently. But at the same time, when I started accepting my disability, I also realized that I was going to be successful not because I was going to be doing everything on my own, but I was going to be successful when I was able to speak up and ask for help.

Hugo Trevino:
So in order for me to be able to ask for help, I was going to once again accept my disability. And then I also looked around to see how others around me were knocking down barriers. And so two huge shouts out would have to be just to the first leaders in my life that taught me to be leaders would be my parents.

Hugo Trevino:
Being first-generation, they migrated to the United States to give me a better future. And they always talked about how they would’ve done anything to have the same resources that I had when they were younger. And so I would always take that opportunity or not take those opportunities for granted.

Hugo Trevino:
Another person who is a huge inspiration in my life and that also showed me a lot of leadership was my sister, Lucy. She also has spinal muscular atrophy. And I just got to see how she was really the first one in our family to go out there and start knocking down barriers. When she was going to graduate from high school, they didn’t want to let her graduate on stage, for example.

Hugo Trevino:
So I remember she told me like, “Okay, I had this experience here, so I tackled it. If that happens to you, here’s what you can do.” And so then I knew what to do when it actually also happened to me and how to battle it.

Hugo Trevino:
So it was those two people, my parents and my sister, knocking down barriers that I realized that it takes others to pave the path for you. And so as I kept growing and going to college, also being first-generation, one of the things that I really appreciated was that I did get to go to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, which is one of the most accessible universities in the country. And they had a mentorship program for students with disabilities in order for us to get to meet other students that were older than us that were already paving the way for accessibility as well on campus.

Hugo Trevino:
One of the things that those students taught me was that “Hey Hugo, one of the reasons why we’re able to be successful and one of the things about paving the path is that in order to pave the path for others, you need to not just be reaching for the minimum, but you need to be going above and beyond standards.”

Hugo Trevino:
So I have always carried that with me that not only should we be meeting standards, and when I talk about standards, I’m referring to the ADA, the Americans with disabilities [crosstalk 00:13:06] but we should be going above that, right? We shouldn’t be breaking glass ceilings, we should be making sure that we’re not just meeting the bare minimum, but that we’re exceeding it. Because of our society, it’s so easy to put limitations on people.

Hugo Trevino:
We got to make sure that if we’re truly leading, we are removing barriers not only for ourselves but those that are going to come after us.

Eileen:
And, Hugo, I have one more question to ask you [inaudible 00:13:31] there, and that is removing barriers is great in the United States. You’ve traveled internationally and broke barriers there. Can you discuss a little bit about your travels internationally and how you’ve done that?

Hugo Trevino:
Yeah, definitely. So when I first attended the university, I wanted to have the full college experience, right? And I did that first by moving away from home, which I didn’t even ever think possible. And I did that through the aid of having personal assistants. Thankfully, Illinois has a really good program for that.

Hugo Trevino:
So another step was me just going to the study abroad office. So as a freshman, a little eager freshman, I walked in there thinking that I’m going to one of the most successful universities in the country, and let’s see what their study abroad office has to offer, right?

Hugo Trevino:
So to my dismay, when I went in there they were like, “Oh, my God, unfortunately, none of our programs are really wheelchair accessible.” This is not something that we’ve really thought about. We’ve never really had too many other students come out to us and ask us some of these questions that I was posing about wheelchair accessibility and just different types of access.

Hugo Trevino:
So I got the conversation going. They asked me a bunch of questions, but ultimately they let me know that at the time being nothing was available. Fast forward, another year, I go back to my sophomore year, and once again, I’m asking these questions. And still, they’re letting us know that the seed has been planted, that they’re hoping to see what they can do to some of the programs, but that I would still have to sit back and wait, right?

Hugo Trevino:
Finally, in my third year, I go back again, this time they had a new director, she was a lot more invested in inaccessibility. And that’s why I always tell it always takes one person, right? To me that was there, rustling people up and trying to make sure that they understood that someone with the disability wanted to go abroad.

Hugo Trevino:
Then finally there was a director that was willing to work with me and understand why I hadn’t gone abroad other years or what I was being told. And so finally with this director, we sat down and talked about, “Okay, what are all the barriers?” And so I let them know that in the United States, there are a lot of accessibility things that I take for granted like paint sidewalks, the fact that I do have personal assistance, the fact that in general there are going to be a lot of accommodations that when I do go abroad, these accommodations are not going to be in place.

Hugo Trevino:
So because of that, this is going to be an added expense to my study abroad experience in order for me to be able to go abroad. So that I think was a way that and maybe others had opposed to it about the fact that in order for me to go abroad, I would ultimately need to also invest additional money to make sure that whenever my country of choice was going to be to make that program also more accessible.

Hugo Trevino:
So she let me know that they had different study abroad offices or institutes that were part of the University of Illinois and that they were going to work to make those institutes more accessible so that those barriers of accessibility or access, right? So that I can even take up space in these places so that would be possible. So that’s where our conversation ended.

Hugo Trevino:
After I went back, I went back my senior year, but I ended up having surgery on my back. I had a spinal fusion, which took me out of school for about a year. And when I returned, I was once again super eager, super ready to go abroad again. And so now they did let me know that they had made an institute in Spain fully-wheelchair accessible, they had widened doors, they had put in ramps, and they had also made an institute in Costa Rica accessible.

Hugo Trevino:
So not only did I have one option, but now I had two, which was mind-blowing.

Alicia:
Yes.

Eileen:
This is a wonderful story Hugo, keep going.

Alicia:
Yes, yes.

Hugo Trevino:
Thank you. And so then once we had that, once they had those two institutes that were accessible, they were like, “Okay, we started talking the logistics.” I started letting them know that unfortunately, I can’t care for myself for activities of daily living, such as getting out of bed, showering, clothing, just cutting up my food, getting back into bed, using the bathroom, just the regular everyday necessities.

Hugo Trevino:
So they were like, “Oh, okay. Well, no problem, we will definitely let your assistant go with you. Here’s how much their plane pass is going to cost.” And then I talked about, “Okay, well room and board, where will they be staying if I go abroad?” And they were like, “Oh, okay, well, we can just add that on top of your program as well for the room and board.”

Hugo Trevino:
So once again, unfortunately, I have to pump the brakes and be like, “Okay, well, because I have a disability, it’s almost like I’m being punished. And so it’s like I’m having to pay for the trip for two people when I’m just one person, right?” And so once again, you remove some barriers, but there are still some barriers there.

Hugo Trevino:
So we continued to work with the director, we spoke to the provost, chancellor. We saw if we can create some type of scholarship or get some kind of funding. And with the aid of that director and my study abroad advisor, we created the first-ever “Enable the broad scholarship” to give funds to students with disabilities to be able to go abroad.

Hugo Trevino:
So that’s when I got to go first to China. And then once the scholarship was created, my advisor was like, “Okay, Hugo, I know you’re the first recipient of the scholarship. We still haven’t created any bylaws and because of that, why don’t you go abroad again?” So I did and that’s when I ended up in Taiwan. And then my second year [crosstalk 00:19:32].

Eileen:
Good for you.

Hugo Trevino:
Yeah.

Alicia:
Yes.

Hugo Trevino:
So then my second year was finally when I did go off to Costa Rica. So sometimes a lot of people are like, “Oh, my God, you studied abroad so often.” But it was because of that, the scholarship had just been created, there weren’t any bylaws. So my advisor was amazing in the fact that she was like, “Well, there’s money sitting here, we still haven’t advertised it all that much. Why don’t you go abroad again?”

Hugo Trevino:
So it just became that experience. And so one of the things I will tell students with disabilities in their leadership skills too, that I also love telling the story was, once I came back to the states, I still got prejudice in regards to my disability, in regards to still being employable.

Hugo Trevino:
So one of the questions that always came up in regards to my disability was shockingly just about like, “Oh, how am I going to make it to work every day?” A lot of employers were worried. “Okay, it looks like on paper, you’re our ideal candidate.” But they were still afraid that because of my disability would even be able to make it to work?

Hugo Trevino:
So I love being able to answer, “Well, as you can see on my resume, I’ve studied abroad three times now, five, but this was when I was looking for jobs after my undergraduate career. And I would always tell them, “If I can make it to China, I can make it to work 9-5:00.” [crosstalk 00:20:59].

Alicia:
Yes, I love it.

Eileen:
Hugo, you go. That is so good.

Alicia:
Oh my gosh, I love it.

Hugo Trevino:
Thank you. So I remember when they say that they would always laugh and be like, “Yeah, [crosstalk 00:21:10] don’t even have the ADA, don’t have these tightened levels of accessibility. So, if you’re doubting my ability to make it to work, don’t. Because if I was able to go to other countries and take classes abroad and get good grades and stuff, I can definitely come to work, five, three miles away from me instead of thousands and thousands of miles away.”

Alicia:
What I love about that is it shuts all the doubt that they have in you down immediately. I mean, I caught it right away. It was so amazing because people don’t think about that and they think they’re doing you a favor by trying to put fears, “Well how is he going to come to work?”

Alicia:
So your great response was that “If I can make it to China.” I love it, I just love it.

Hugo Trevino:
Thank you.

Eileen:
I mean, and it was so nice that you said it in a light way, know what I mean? It’s so great.

Alicia:
Yeah.

Hugo Trevino:
I mean, trust me the first couple of times, I wish I would’ve been like, dang gotten that answer right off the bat and it took a couple of interviews for me to just be like, “Oh my God, how are they still stumping me? How are they still doubting me?” And me just having to look at my own resume again, once again, through self-reflection and just reaffirm myself and accept once again who I am in order for me to be like, “You know what? My disability didn’t stop me from going abroad. Why would it stop me from showing up to work every day?”

Hugo Trevino:
Then finally I was like, “That’s going to be my answer next time someone asks me.” And sure enough, the question was brought up again.

Alicia:
And you know what I like about that, that self-reflection? It’s like building courage, right? And it’s preparing for the next time somebody said. You took that resume and you said, “Oh my goodness, they’re not even looking at what you have accomplished.” And I also would say this to you, Hugo. A lot of times, unfortunately, some people that have to interview, don’t see what they should be seen in people. You have to see beyond.

Alicia:
That’s where the inclusion part comes in. That’s when you take down the barriers of diversity issues and you begin to open up and say, “Wait a minute, let’s look at what he’s accomplished. Now let’s see how he can be an impact.” And so that’s what I think happens to a lot of us when it’s trying for roles and positions that we think we can handle. But the people sitting here don’t see the potential, right?

Alicia:
That’s okay because your resume says it all. But I have to ask you a question, what do you do to keep building that courage that you need? You tore down a lot of walls and obviously some cons, but I bet you have a process or a thought where you say, “You know what? There’s a barrier or there’s a wall they’re trying to put in place. I know how to knock it down.” What process do you use to have the courage to start knocking out continuously more walls?

Hugo Trevino:
Sure. So as far as my process to knock down more walls is I try to set goals for myself of what I want to continue, where I want to see myself in the future and I want to thank Eileen too for helping me in that aspect and the fact that she didn’t mentor me for a while as well when I was feeling a little bit stuck in my current role and things like that or even though I was getting my master’s, there were so many different possibilities of, should I do this, should I do that, where can I see myself?

Hugo Trevino:
So for me, I try to always tell myself that as someone that loves education, someone that loves helping others, I want to continue to keep growing. And in my position, whenever I feel like I’m no longer learning or where I’m no longer being able to help as many people as I would like, then that is when I need to be like, “Okay, what’s going to be my next move? How can I continue to help others? Or how can it grow or move into a new position where my outreach can continue to be bigger and to be more amplified?”

Hugo Trevino:
Then another way that I love to also recharge is, and I want to thank you all for doing this today, is just listening to other people’s stories and hearing stories like mine, trying to hear what other people with disabilities are going through and what other Latino’s are going through. And these are just only the identities that I identify with or what other people or other millennials that are LGBT also going through that are gay or identify as gay or because I have so much intersectionality.

Hugo Trevino:
Sometimes I try to see, is there someone that is what’s and disabled and can I hear a story about that? Or is there someone that’s gay, disabled, and Latino, which is even more rare? And so a lot of the time, I won’t find those stories all the time, but as long as I can hear what other people are overcoming, I think it’s so important for everyone when they can, and if they are able to, to share their story. Their stories need to be heard for other people to understand that they’re not the only person that is struggling. They’re not the only person that needs a little bit of motivation.

Hugo Trevino:
So besides setting for myself, just hearing other people’s stories of what they’re doing to also better themselves and better their communities, that fuels me to be like, “Okay, I also have work to do, how can I help that situation? Or how can I start something up in my community and in my circle?”

Eileen:
Phenomenal Hugo, I mean, and stories are the connection between our heart and our head. And that’s why they’re so powerful. They’re a window to the soul because you are sharing what’s connecting your heart and your head and sharing that window of what your life’s about. And so that’s amazing. We love people coming on our show here to tell stories and to get the word out there. So again, we are so grateful that you are here.

Eileen:
If you could, my next question for you: if you could share your north star values, what would they be? What would be some words that would describe what your core values are that keep you so busy and this outreach and all the committees you’re on and helping people and the stories.

Eileen:
I mean, our tagline is ordinary people doing extraordinary things, but this is extraordinary doing extraordinary that I’m seeing here.

Alicia:
I was just thinking that yes.

Eileen:
And with all your energy and your vision and your past outreach and your travel and breaking barriers down would love to hear, what’s in your heart, what are your core values?

Hugo Trevino:
Sure. And so I think that this also was a question that I had been contemplating for a really long time. I contemplated it a lot in grad school when I first learned of this word. And I think it would need to be the word like altruism or in this sense since we’re talking about the soul of a leader, how to lead, or how to be an altruistic leader.

Hugo Trevino:
For audience members out there that don’t know what altruism means, it is guiding others with the goal of improving their wellbeing or their emotional state or in other words, as well, thinking of others while you make decisions. Realizing that all the decisions that you’re making are going to affect not only yourself but that they’re going to affect others.

Hugo Trevino:
So when I was in grad school, unfortunately, we had a really bad administration, in my opinion, with the president, with the 45th president that was in office. And I felt that a lot of the decisions that he was making were not altruistic. It was a lot for his self-interest and a lot of party members’ self-interest.

Hugo Trevino:
It was almost like they were trying to do the opposite of what their offices and their power were meant to do to help others. So it was very easy for me to be able to see what true altruistic leaders were doing with a lot of the natural disasters that are happening. When leaders go out there and they try to help people one-on-one, or when they make decisions knowing that down the line it’s going to be helping a lot of individuals.

Hugo Trevino:
So I think that that’s one of the things I’ve always said, “I love giving back to my community.” So I love giving back to people with disabilities. That’s been one of my biggest drives in all the jobs that I’ve had from my first job. So I was helping more people in the Spanish-speaking community and immigrants. And my second job, I was helping people that were a blind or had low vision. After that, I was helping people with neurological diseases. Now I’m helping students with all arrays of different kinds of disabilities from visible to invisible disabilities.

Hugo Trevino:
So I hope that every single time that I am given this position and the seat to speak up for my students, or just in general speak for people with disabilities that not only do I try to speak up for people with my disability, which sometimes that can be very easy for me to just focus on. Okay, what’s affecting people with just physical disabilities, but in general, trying to think about what are the things that are affecting people with all different types of disabilities?

Hugo Trevino:
So I always try to think altruistically, I guess you can say what are the actions that I’m taking, how are they helping others? Especially nowadays where we live in a society where unfortunately there are a lot of bad news and sometimes people feel like they need to unplug because they can’t handle all the hatred that’s happening in the news. I mean that in all the sense with anti-Asian hate or Asian hate, I should say, and with all the attacks that are happening to black lives and just Latinos.

Hugo Trevino:
I can go on with all the different types of injustices that are happening to all the minorities. And so I would like to tell people that when you are making decisions to just not be thinking about yourself as an individual, but to be thinking about how your goals or how your decisions affect others and hopefully try to make it so that yes, not only are you bettering yourself but what are you also doing to better your community and to better others? And once again, hopefully, future generations.

Eileen:
Wow. That’s all what love is about and what you just said, Dr. Alicia and I have a new program and there’s a lot of D&I and belonging or whatever. Our program is called Choose Humanity. Choose humanity because if you choose humanity, you know that we’re all connected.

Alicia:
Yes.

Eileen:
And I agree with you, Hugo. I think we just have to get back to say that we’re all connected, we’re all here, and start getting back to our core soul of love. And thank you so much for sharing that beautiful value of wellbeing and for the better good, because it makes all difference. It makes all the difference.

Alicia:
Yes, yes, yes. I’m just so full-on with what you said. I just think you’re a remarkable individual and I’m a woman of faith and I just know that the love of God is on you for what you have a passion to do. I mean, it’s just amazing to me to see that because your heart is about helping others. Not only just that look like you, as you said, but it’s also any of your students or those individuals who need help.

Alicia:
I think one of the other important parts to that is you really are defining what inclusion really means by the work that you do. You’re not just talking about it, you’re showing it by what you do and all the effort that you put into helping others with disabilities.

Alicia:
So I know time flies when you’re having great fun, I can just listen to you really all night. Dr. Eileen and I have known each other for years, and we both gravitate to organizations or things about giving back. It’s just a natural thing. And so I can connect with you so much soul-wise because you’re about helping others.

Alicia:
So what words of wisdom would you like to leave? And you have said a lot, but I know there’s something else in that soul of yours to speak. What are some words of wisdom that you would like to leave with our listeners?

Hugo Trevino:
Definitely. Well, I love that you mentioned that you’re also a person of God. I think that one of the things with growing up with my disability, I went from being an atheist because I didn’t understand why I was in a wheelchair or why God would do something like that or why he would create disabilities and things like that.

Hugo Trevino:
As I kept growing up and realizing that with me just trying to live a positive life, with me just trying to be like a quote-unquote, good person, that I did have God’s love in my heart and that every single person that I was meeting, they were there to teach me some kind of lesson, whether they were helping me for a long period of time or whether they were there to just kind of show me a small lesson.

Hugo Trevino:
So with that, I also realized that, and anybody who does have love. And so with that too, I think I would always go back to the message of when I learn from others, that also it took a lot for me to accept myself, to accept my disability, to accept my brown skin as well.

Hugo Trevino:
Then finally, when I was in college, it took a lot too for me to accept my sexual identity of being gay. And so it was something too that at every step, it’s a little bit scary when you’re fully embracing every aspect of who you are because you don’t know if others are going to accept you for just being yourself.

Hugo Trevino:
So I want to tell people out there to please accept who you are because others will gravitate towards you when they see that you are being genuinely yourself. And once again, remember that the actions that you do, do affect others. And so to please try to remember that just by being yourself, you’re going to do a positive impact on someone else’s life, and you’re going to influence someone else’s life as well by being your true and genuine self.

Hugo Trevino:
So thank you so much for allowing me to be here today on Soul of a Leader. Yeah, it’s the way that people should lead like my little advice on how people should lead their everyday life as well.

Eileen:
Thank you for joining us on the Soul of a Leader podcast. We are igniting a new way of leading with your soul and interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary impact. Thank you for listening to the stories of our leaders who will help and guide you on your leadership journey. For more information on our podcast, please visit our website at wwwsoulofaleader.com. Thank you for listening.