Travis Brown was in Warren County on Thursday morning on an anti-bullying tour asking local students to “Mojo Up” and take a stand against bullying.
“All it takes is one student to make a difference,” said Brown. “You can make a difference every single day. The question I have is will that difference be a positive one, or a negative one? Are you helping people or are you hurting people?”
Brown, also known as Mr. Mojo for his high-energy, intense content and captivating speaking style, has delivered over 1,600 hours of motivational presentations to companies and youth nationwide. On his anti-bullying tours, he has impacted the lives of nearly 1 million students in the United States and abroad.
He encouraged local students to help people and “Mojo Up,” which means to be positive daily, to pass that positivity onto others, and take a stand against bullying.
“When I talk about Mojo, I am talking about the highest level of positive attitude,” Brown said. “It’s your enthusiasm, your energy, you purpose. It’s when you wake up every morning knowing you can make a positive difference with someone. That’s Mojo. It’s not enough for you to have it. You have to pass that Mojo onto others. You have to step in, to reach out and get help if you have to, just to make sure someone else is OK.”
The Mojo Up Anti-Bullying Program is a comprehensive approach for K-12 schools to empower the vested stakeholders in education to become leaders against the ever-growing epidemic of bullying. The program is designed to provide educational training components for principals, teachers, counselors, coaches, students and even parents with a unified strategy that includes school-wide cultural shifts, classroom instructions, and individual growth models.
Brown says bullies are individuals who continuously hurt, harm or make fun of somebody and having Mojo means you won’t ignore that type of behavior.
“As a bystander, we have the power to change things. You can Mojo Up. You can take a stand. You have the power to help people or you have the power to hurt people every single day. If you take a stand, if you Mojo Up, you have the ability to impact all the people around you. If you don’t want to step in because you are afraid, then go get help. Report it to a teacher.”
Brown offered these statistics:
• Nearly 1-in-3 students report being bullied during the school year.
• 32 percent of students admit if/ when bullied, they would tell no one.
• Other kids are watching 85 percent of the time when one kid bullies another.
• 57 percent of the time when someone steps in and intervenes when bullying, it stops within 10 seconds, according to Brown.
Brown offered presentations at Warren County Middle School and Morrison Elementary on Thursday morning.