Tears, laughs and secrets were shared between a group of student circled around each other in a trailer classroom. With the starting mindset of wanting to be a leader, students from the Spanish and Interpreters club attending the Ernie G Leadership Workshop left with a different mindset than they came with.

Led by motivational speaker and Latino comedian Ernesto Tomas Gritzewsky, also known as Ernie G, the Ernie G Leadership Workshop was created to enhance and expand the leadership skills of students. While this session aims to help whoever is attending be a better leader in any given situation, Gritzewsky also finds it as a time for the students to get to know themselves.

“My leadership workshop gets students to reveal their real, genuine, authentic self, and when you reveal that authentic self, [others] can’t help but be touched, moved and inspired, and that makes them want to share their real self,” Gritzewsky said.

The workshop started off with warm up games and icebreakers between the students. Throughout each activity, Gritzewsky watched as students became more comfortable with each other as they continued to reveal more about themselves.

“Almost every student here got in touch with what’s going on with them. It’s not just about leadership, it was about emotional intelligence. Several students started balling and sobbing and sharing their deep, dark secrets,” Gritzewsky said.

Senior Carlos Gallardos decided to attend the workshop when Spanish teacher Phil Yutzy recommended it to him. Because Gallardos is in the Interpreters club, he found the workshop as another chance to learn more leadership and social skills for when he interprets for the community. One of the things he learned from Ernie G’s advice is to not change who he is when he is leading.

“I’m going to go away with being yourself and not being fake, as [Ernie] stated it,” Gallardos said.

Finding the overall experience to be an emotional one, Spanish club leader and senior Alex Rodriguez not only learned a few things about his peers and Ernie G, but also a few things about his identity.

“I saw the part that I never showed to anybody. In different situations, we have to apply different skills… We should be proud of who we are and don’t show who we are not…I feel sometimes we need more advice about how to be better leaders,” Rodriguez said.

Q: Tell me a little about where you grew up and your life back then.

A: “I grew up in Los Angeles to a single mother. My parents were never married, so I was raised by mother, by herself. Papa had several kids off with different mothers, my dad was the ultimate ‘Papi Chulo.’”

Q: How do try to relate your life growing up with other people?

A: “Kids can relate to the fact that I didn’t grow up with a relationship with my dad, so it’s always a beautiful way of connecting with kids who have issues with their parents.”

Q: Who would you give credit to when it comes down to who you are as a person today?

A: “My mom’s dream when she came over from Mexico was raise a young, educated American boy, and so she really worked for me to get an education… I went to a private catholic high school and catholic university… I went to Loyola Marymount University.”

Q: Before becoming a performer, who would you say inspired you?

A: “As a kid, my uncle was a child actor.  He came up on a bunch of TV shows, so I always had this dream of being a performer, being an actor.”

Q: When did you truly get into motivational speaking?

A: “My aunt died, my uncle’s wife. When she died, it was the most devastating experience of my life. [I] went to her funeral, and no one was going to say anything, no one was giving a eulogy, and I was like ‘is someone going to say something,’ and they said ‘you say something if you want’ so I went up in front a whole bunch of people and I was like ‘ode to a rose, why did my tia die? Why did God take the one angel we still had on this planet?”

Q: So what happened after your public speaking moment at your aunt’s funeral?

A: I’m not going to let her death be in vein, so I’m going back to college and I’m going to graduate in her honor. When I said that to my family, I just remember people standing up and clapping and crying, and I was like, ‘oh my gosh, I know how to use my words to really move people,’ and that’s where Ernie G the speaker came in.”

Q: What did you do after you felt you were called to be a motivational speaker and comedian?

A: “I quit graduate school, started doing comedy, and here we are later, I’m one of the top 20 latino comedians in the country.”

Q: Where has being a comedian taken you?

A: “It has taken me all over the world. I was on tour with George Lopez and Gabriel Iglesias… Me, George and Gabriel were on this show called “Que Locos” and that show kind of us put on the map.”

Q: Did you just stick to comedy?

A: “We were travelling across the country doing comedy, but just making people laugh at a comedy club wasn’t fulfilling for me, but when I started doing this empowerment comedy stuff, it really opened the doors to perform and colleges and universities all over the country.”

Q: What makes you want to continue to keep doing what you do everyday?

A: “I get to wake up every morning knowing that God put me on the planet to do this empowerment comedy, not just making people laugh, but making young people fall back in love with who they really are.”

Q: What is the biggest advice you give to students or anyone in general that attends your leadership workshop?A: “If it is to be, it is up to me… If it’s going to happen, if you’re going to get into college, if you’re going to successful, if you’re going to do well in life, it’s because you made the decision to make it happen. If it is to be, it is up to me.”