[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hi, my name is Angie Miller with AFFA.
And I'm so glad you joined me here today
for more education, motivation, and tips
to take our teaching to the next level.
So I'm traveling here in New Zealand for a couple of weeks.
And that's where I'm filming right now.
Behind me is Lake Wakatipu.
It is a glacier fed leg in New Zealand.
So I'm here in Queenstown.
It's absolutely beautiful.
And that's what I want to talk to you about, is traveling.
And how I believe traveling has helped
me to become a better teacher.
And hopefully, with any luck, traveling
has helped me to become a better person.
So I want to talk about five things
that I've gained from traveling that I
bring into the classroom.
And number one is acceptance.
I truly believe that the more I travel, the more and I gain
an appreciation for how unique and how individual we all are.
And that is acceptance without judgment.
That is a true appreciation for all of those differences.
And I bring that into the classroom
when I lead my group fitness classes.
Because my goal is to build acceptance
by building community.
But also to create an environment
of total inclusiveness, not in spite of our differences,
but because of them.
To celebrate those differences and to get a true appreciation
for accepting one another for who we are exactly as we are.
And so the second thing that I've learned through traveling
is patience.
Oh, my gosh, the long lines, the traffic,
all of the unexpected events that happens, big crowds.
And I think that teaching requires a lot of patience.
Right?
When you lead large groups of people,
you have difficult members, you have music that doesn't work,
we forget our choreography sometimes.
And patience is the only path to find our way through resistance
and challenges.
OK?
So number three, the third thing that I've gained
from traveling, is flexibility.
Flexibility to go with the flow, and I
know that goes right along with patience.
But so many times when we are traveling-- so,
my luggage was delayed by a day.
So traveling to New Zealand is long.
It took three different flights.
It was more than 24 hours, the traveling.
And then I get here and my luggage
doesn't arrive for a day.
So I end up walking around what would effectively
be three full days with the same clothing on.
So when we travel, we need to be flexible.
We need to go with the flow.
But when we lead large groups of people,
we also need to be flexible.
Sometimes we set out with a plan.
And we think that that's the plan
that we're going to follow.
But we totally have to adjust and change the plan
because it isn't working.
And flexibility is all about being
willing to adjust our plan.
The fourth thing that I've learned through traveling
is perspective.
So the more that I travel, the more that I get out
of my own world, my own worries.
And I realize that there's so much
more out there to experience and to see and to discover.
So my name is Angie Miller.
And those are my tips to help you take your skill
set wherever it is that you go.
Thank you for joining me today.
Keep doing what you love and loving what you do.