‘Unleashing Possibilities’ with Luis Ortega..

“Every moment should be the moment you give your best because when you give your best, you are unleashing the power of possibilities and in the process, you are encouraging people to unleash their dreams.”

The voice of Luis Ortega, Director and Founder at Power to Define Consulting, bursts with enthusiasm as he encourages people to practice the same. Ortega spent his entire college life volunteering to talk to students and facilitating leadership workshops. Upon graduation, he realized that he didn’t want this work to end. So he created an organization of his own to continue his work.

“The greatest thing you can do with your education is to give it to others,” he tells.

His ultimate dream is to close the opportunity gap in education in the United States and expand social entrepreneurship opportunities across the world.

Every dream has an origin to it and to understand the origin, one needs to understand the story behind it. Luis came to Seattle from Mexico as an undocumented student to begin a new life and what he is today has become his story, inspiring many.

“How he combined his personal life and then generalized it into a cause to inspire all of us to work on, fascinated me,” says Labisha Uprety, 21, a student from Nepal.

Life however can’t be crystal clear all the time. There have to be ups and downs, challenges and criticisms, those unclear and blurry moments when you stop and doubt your self.

For Luis, that blurry moment, when judgments, doubts and reality were continuously pulling him down, was when he was told by his advisor from High School that people like him didn’t go to college.

“I remember being heartbroken. I almost allowed this person to define my life,” he recalls. “After a lot of inner reflection however, I realized the importance of believing in yourself.”

Ortega has conducted hundreds of workshops with students from almost 50 different countries. Their backgrounds are very different, but what they want is the same. They are all concerned about education, environment and economic development in their own countries.

“The difference lies in the context,” he observes. “While some talk about education as there is a lack of flexibility in their curriculum, others talk about it from the stand point of simply having access to schools.”

While the stories, ideas and cultures differ from country to country, Ortega says he continues to be amazed by the fact that they all share a dream of improving their communities.

Advocating the importance of education, he strongly believes that every community deserves access to educational opportunities.

“My inspiration is every student I’ve ever worked with,” he says, as he speaks about the dreams, hopes and incredible potential which he thinks every individual holds.

His work largely focuses on inspiring people to reach for those opportunities where they exist and innovate, to create them where they don’t.

“Education is a beautiful gift which must be given to every human being. It is about service, equity and community-building.”

However one needs to face challenges as well, to be able to believe in themselves. Creating a balance in your life is crucial else, it gets monotonous. If you don’t get to fail, you don’t get to learn from your failures. You don’t get to challenge yourself.

“If you’re finding success too often, you need to change things because you are getting too comfortable,” he says as he encourages us to ‘fail a little bit more’ for, “as long as you are successful, how are you going to impact those around you so that they can be successful as well?”

His idea and encouragement of ‘unleashing and creating possibilities’ using the ‘3Is’- Imagine, Innovate and Impact, continues to remain with the students for a long time.

“It was a very simple activity. I just had to use my imagination and innovate the kind of organization I’d want to run. The impact was how empowered it made me feel,” says Zenisha Gonsalves an Indian student.

What draws you in, is his art of weaving stories to inspire the creation of several others.

“The things that struck me most about Luis Ortega and Powertodefine were the ideas of ‘Choose Empathy’ and ‘Storytelling Saturdays’. These were things I could relate to and something that made me like the portal instantly. I am curious now and want to explore more,” says Simran Bhui also an Indian student.

A story to him is about creating connections. The man who created an organization not as a career or a profession but simply, as a way of life through telling stories believes “It is about the ability to understand and see the world through someone else’s eyes to expand perspectives, increase appreciation and unleash ripple effects of possibilities.”

Medha Kohli

Medha Kohli has worked as a TV Anchor and a voice artist. She also works as a social media content writer. She is pursuing Mass Communication, English Literature and Political Science and plans to continue her higher education in Journalism in International Relations.