Mister Brown stood on the Poughkeepsie Middle School stage. Behind him was an image of a puzzle with only its border completed and the words “You Didn’t Choose This.”

He explained to the room full of students, he grew up in an inner city environment without a father.

“I didn’t choose that. That was chosen for me,” he said, before referencing the puzzle. “You don’t get to choose the outside, but you get to choose the inside. I want you to believe that.”

Brown, a motivational speaker of three decades, brought his “Choose Well Program” to Poughkeepsie on March 3 for a full day that included presentations to each grade level, individual visits with student groups and an after-school session with staff.

“Every choice you make is like an individual puzzle piece,” he said. “The question is, who will you choose to be?”

He then shared one of his favorite quotes and made the room repeat it after he said it: “You can’t choose where you come from, but you can choose where you’re going.”

Brown engaged the students not only through explaining how to make good choices but through multiple games. He shared personal anecdotes to relate to the students, including showing his own baby picture and that of his children.

The students were ready and receptive. Even before the show began, they spotted him walking down an auditorium aisle and burst into cheers. Brown kept the energy up throughout with several call and response moments in which the students called out “Oh Yeah!”

Sixth-grade teacher Selina Barrington, who helped spearhead the day, said the school has been trying to get Brown to visit for several years. She and other teachers have used his videos and clips as social and emotional learning tools.

“He’s a celebrity to them,” she said of their enthusiasm. “They see him in their classroom every morning. We talk about choosing well, we talk about the messages he has in his videos. We plant seeds throughout the day. He’s their A-list celebrity.”

Early on, Brown talked to the students about trust and how to be respectable.

“How many of you feel you have adults in your life who don’t trust you?” he asked, and many hands went in the air. “How many of you don’t like that they don’t trust you?”

Finally, he asked, “How many of you guys have lied?” leading to just as many hands went in the air and some giggles.

“If you want to be trusted and respected,” he said, “show them you should be trusted and respected.”

Brown also touched on interpersonal interactions with friends. He shared that, as a student himself, he and his friends would playfully rib each other. But, he noted, you can’t be sure someone is taking that ribbing in good spirits and it can sometimes lead to hurt feelings or consequences.

That was the message several students held on to afterward.

“Respect people,” Maria Jose, a sixth grade student, said of what resonated most. “You don’t know what’s going on in someone’s background. It’s best to respect them instead of making fun of them.”

Classmate Tyler Bryant added, “If you don’t treat people with respect, it could lead to bad things or other bad choices.”

Both Jose and Bryant were members of groups, Culture Shock and student government, which had individual visits with Brown later in the day. Brown said at those sessions, he typically lets the students lead the conversation wherever they want it to go.

Toward the end of the presentation, he led the room in a “Simon Says”-type game called “Do This, Not That,” in which most everyone in the room failed to keep up with his directions. He said it illustrated how hard it is to do the right thing when seeing someone else do the wrong thing, often hypocritically.

“It’s not about them. It’s about you,” he said, before having the students repeat a line he emphasized several times through the presentation: “I am responsible for me.”