Former Bronx girl gang member, Pegine Echevarria, joined a new "gang", after being inducted into the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame, its first Latina. Pegine's fellow 58 "gang members" include such luminaries as Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins.

During her teenage years, Pegine ran with the wrong crowd on the tough streets of the Bronx. Her father abandoned her after her mother decided she had had enough and became determined to keep the family afloat. When her sister became the local junkie Pegine swore off drugs and alcohol. Her sister eventually died from a heroin overdose.

Within the gang culture, Pegine relied more on a sharp wit and dynamic personality for "street credit" and avoided a long rap sheet. But even her charm could not keep Pegine out of trouble.

She was kicked out of her first high school. She graduated from another high school after a drama teacher took Pegine under her wing. Pegine decided to use her natural comedic gifts and magnetic personality to lift herself and others out of the doldrums.

Pegine waited on tables, saved her money and moved to Europe where she turned her life around. She launched two businesses both which she sold at a profit. She returned to the states to finish her degree in improvisational and audience participation theatre. She then earned a Masters in Social Work, concentrating on group and organizational development.

She paid for college by working as a teacher's assistant at the New York City Board of Education. Her transformation continued from teen gang member to receptionist to salesperson to VP of sales and eventually becoming a business owner. Along the way, Pegine designed and directed a Latino family support center that was named one of the top ten in the country by The Harvard Group Review.

Her successes led to frequent appearances on national talk shows like Montel Williams, and Queen Latifah. One appearance led Montel Williams to win an Emmy! Pegine's bold humor, enthusiasm and empowering message endeared her to audiences. Soon Pegine managed a thriving professional speaking business that touched thousands of lives on motivating leaders in a diverse world and empowering people to be leaders in their work, family and community. Business and news shows sought her insights including CNN, MSNBC and NPR. She was the on air expert on diversity in business for Newstalk Television. She has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Sun Times and various consumer magazines. Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series, described Pegine as "The WOW of Wows!"

Pegine and her family moved from New York to Florida to start a new life and focus on spreading her message. Today she is nationally known and respected leadership empowerment guru who leads in a diverse world with laughter and gusto.

Pegine Echevarria has received numerous awards and proclamations for her leadership work including the North Florida 2005 Minority Enterprise Development Week Entrepreneur of the Year, Congressional Merit Award for Outstanding Leadership Programs and the prestigious Orgullo Award for Leadership. Pegine is also nominated for the 2007 Hispanic Business Magazine Women of the Year. Her clients include Verizon, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Intel, Lucent Technologies, NASA, and the US military.

Pegine is the author of several books including her latest, Sometimes You Just Have To Kick Your Own Butt. In this compact empowerment tool, Pegine delivers disarming yet straightforward lessons on how to Kick Your Own Butt, transform your life and take responsibility for your actions. Pegine's other books include, For All of Our Daughters, a guide on how to mentor young women and girls, Bragging Rights: Transform Your Team in 21 Days and White Men Are Diverse Too!

Her leadership and community involvement include being a National Board Member and Vice President of Employers United for a Stronger America, a foundation that provides research, philanthropy, and education regarding employers and their US military reserve and National Guard employees. She is a member of the Society of Human Resources National Workplace Diversity Expertise Panel; an Advisory Board member of the Jacksonville Women's Business Center, and a member of the National Speakers Association Membership and Retention Committee (Minority Outreach Sub-committee).

She and her husband have raised two leaders. She is the proud mother of a son Kenneth, a National Guard solider, and her daughter Andrea, a US Army ROTC cadet at MIT & Wellesley.

Play B.I.G. - Take charge of your potential!

You have a choice! Either you choose to Play B.I.G.® or you choose to play small. Choosing to Play B.I.G.® reaps rewards that include energy, prosperity, inspiration, creativity and love. Playing small brings chaos into our lives and businesses. When we play small we experience fear, debt, limits and strangled relationships.

The program focuses on five of the most frustrating behaviors that stop people from reaching their highest potential and the seven behaviors that make a world of difference.

This program is interactive, funny and animated with lots of strategies, lessons and tips. The audience laughs while networking with each other and learning various techniques that reap positive rewards.

Play B.I.G.®, How to Get Out of Your Head & WIN at LIFE

Selected Points

• How to identify the five behaviors that hold people back.
• How to acknowledge and change negative behaviors in mid stream.
• How to thwart people exhibiting the five small behaviors before they interrupt your day. How to deal with people at work and at home.
• How laughter can transform your point of view.

Participants will:

• Learn several techniques to thwart the five small behaviors that disrupt their work and lives
• Enjoy themselves while laughing so hard tears run down their face. Interact with their fellow audience members.
• They will make new connections and reconnect with old friends.
• Increase their knowledge regarding human behavior (their own and others) and how to improve relationships with others
• Walk away energized, connected and prepared to take on the world.

Journey from the Streets to Success

This is a moving, dramatic and humorous story. Pegine tells her story of abandonment, (her father abandoned her at the age of 12) gangs (yes, many people don't know that Pegine was a member of a girl's gang), drugs (Pegine's sister died of a drug overdose) and Pegine's move to Spain to change her life. The presentation is about the internal changes that Pegine needed to make so that she could be the person that she is now.

Pegine was able to overcome her past to become national sales manager and president of a catalogue company, business owner, guest expert for Health, Glamour, and Women in Insurance, Monster.com, and Latina Magazine, author and an international motivational speaker.

She shares the lessons learned and the success tactics she and others use to overcome the odds and win.

The program reflects Pegine's internal belief that we all must be leaders in our lives, work, family and community. We are each responsible to change and grow so that we can accept the blessings of success and share it with others.

This program addresses the following:

• The power of perseverance
• How to get out of your head and take action
• The importance of faith
• Why you have to be willing to Play BIG in life
• How to be passionate
• How to live your dream Benefits
• Learn techniques that will guide you on the road to success
• Recognize how self-limiting beliefs hold us back
• Relate to Pegine's trials and tribulations Immediately apply the lessons and actions taught
• Examine the actions and acknowledge those behaviors, thoughts or perceptions that stop us from succeeding
• Enjoy ourselves and each other while being entertained

Participants will leave the program:

• Inspired to overcome the obstacles in their lives "If she can do it so can I"
• Knowledgeable about the success steps and HOW TO take them
• Enthusiastic, because they were involved and active participants
• Motivated to action

Carry the Torch

It is our internal desire to impact the community, organizations and the people we interact with while leading them to positive outcomes.

For some they understand the desire to mean control.

For others they understand the desire as being too lofty an ideal, something they are not worthy of.

Still for others they want to follow that desire to lead but don't know how.

In this program Pegine leads participants on an interactive and entertaining journey of what true leadership is. She shares how true leadership is embodied in three torch symbols.

The torch of the Statue of Liberty - offering hope and opportunity.

The torch of the Olympics - offering global diversity, competition and camaraderie.

The torch of the firefighter - offering images of searching, risk taking and brotherhood of man.

Selected Points

• What are TORCH behaviors and beliefs and how can you incorporate them in your life?
• How to motivate, encourage and support your team?
• How to be a TORCH leader in today's environment?
• How to lead the TORCH way at work and at home?
• How to acknowledge people effectively and create a team environment.
• How do TORCH leaders behave and how you can be one of them.

Participants will:

• Learn several techniques to improve their leadership ability.
• Enjoy themselves and be entertained.
• Interact with their co-workers and fellow audience members while discussing, laughing and participating in activities.
• Build stronger teams using TORCH principles.
• Learn TORCH principles of leadership and how they can incorporate them at work and at home.
• Increase their knowledge about why some leadership techniques don't work and how they can incorporate simple but effective strategies in their leadership skill box.
• Learn how to acknowledge, motivate and prod their teams to higher productivity and increased bonding among members.

Communicate Your Value

Getting people to know your value begins with you. You must be clear about the value you and your division offers others. Once you know what you offer you need to be strategic about sharing it with the world.

News Flash!

People cannot read your mind. This includes your superiors, your friends and your family You may think that they notice your talents or your division's accomplishments but they do not.

There is no fairy godmother who will whisper your accomplishments to the people who are important in your life and career. There is no angel that will whisper your division's successes. You need to take charge and market your success.

Pegine shares through story telling, audience participation and comedy, how people think they are promoting their value. She then teaches techniques and tips that truly promote ones value so people listen.

This program addresses the following:

• The thought processes and behaviors that prevent a person from seeing then prompting their value.
• The two greatest barriers to identifying and sharing your value.
• How to promote your value
• What is valuable?

Participants will:

• Define the self limiting behaviors and promoting values.
• Choose various ways that you can be strategic and promote your value
• Discuss, interact and network with other participants.

Participants will leave the program:

• Laughing
• Exhilarated, because they now know how to play the self-promotion
• Inspired to communicate their value in spite of their fear or embarrassment.

You Are A Gem

People change their perceptions of people of color, women and Caucasian men when people of color, women and Caucasian men change their perceptions of themselves.

We are rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. The settings we are in can increase our brilliance, our uniqueness and enhance our assets.

We are what we say to ourselves, what we believe of ourselves and the actions that we take based on those beliefs. We take actions based on our beliefs.

Do we believe that we are unique and special?

Do you believe that you are worthy of your dreams?

Do you believe that you organization wants you? Do you believe that you organization can offer you amazing opportunities?

Or

Do you believe that there is a 'glass ceiling'?

Do you believe that you are feared?

Do you believe that 'they' are against you?

We are gems!

Highly Coveted, Unique, and Valuable

This program:

• Inspires audience members to think differently about themselves
• Identifies five qualities that make us gems
• Energizes individuals to embrace their uniqueness
• Includes strategies, techniques and processes to enrich your life, your worth, and your career

Participants will:

• Laugh
• Interact
• Be inspired
• Be motivated and Take Action

Participants will leave the program:

• Exhilarated
• Inspired to communicate their value to others
• Entertained

Organizations reap the following benefits

• Enhance employee engagement
• Increase team cohesiveness
• Increase productivity