
January 24, 2014 marked Air Central's employee mentoring forum, with Joe Onosai as guest speaker.
According to an April 25, 2006 Honolulu Advertiser article, "Joe Onosai's fascinating athletic career took him from the housing projects of Kuhio Park Terrace to the Dallas Cowboy's training camp, to the doorstep of becoming the World's Strongest Man (he made it as high as third in the competition.)"
Joe Onosai spoke about his personal challenges and victories, which included overcoming paralysis as a result of an injury during the NFL training camp....

Joe shared personal stories relating how his life mentors - a police officer, a high school principal, and legendary football coach Dick Tomey -- guided him during his youth. Looking back, he realized his life experience connected like dots to make him what he is today.
Here are some highlights of Joe's wisdom:
"A team is only good as its individuals. What makes a really good team is having people who care about the team, who are willing to sacrifice to do whatever it takes to get the team to ... [succeed]."
"When you're young, you use most of your right brain to think because your right brain involves using the imagination and being creative and constantly thinking on how to improve and live outside the box. But when you get older, you shift from the right brain thinking to left brain. When you shift, you're more about routine, more about memories, and if you're not careful... all of a sudden all your desire and dreams is to arrive at your death with comfort."
"The most wealthiest place in the entire world is the grave yards, because there's potential - songs that were never sung, books never written, companies that should have came out -- that were never realized or manifested. Before Joe Onosai dies, Joe wants to do everything he was meant to do; He wants to die empty." "Change starts with you. When you change, everything changes. When you change the way you look at something, that something changes. Because it all starts with you." |
"Somehow life works out. What you sow is what you reap. What you put in, you get out. You put in a little, you get a little. You put in your heart and love comes back."

Following Joe's inspirational speech, employees took advantage of the opportunity to 'pick his brain' during the Pau Hana party.