How you guys doing? Good, good good good good. Well guys, I was born this way, and there’sno medical reason why that happened. My brother and my sister were born with arms and legs. And sometimes in life, things happen thatdon’t make sense. My doctors never thought that I’d be able to walk, and today, I’mwalking. I’m from Australia, anybody want to one day go to Australia? It’s such acool place. And I now live in LA; I’m a Southern California boy. So I only live aboutfour hours from here. And today I’m going to tell you, man — Ilove freaking people out. One day I’m in a car, I’m in the front seat — I’m notdriving of course. 
Can you imagine if I’m driving a car? They reckon they can put ajoystick — that thing that controlls my wheelchair — we can put that in a car. Likehow fully sick is that? Imagine if I get pulled over by the cops? Can I have your driver’slicense please? Yeah, but, it’s over there; you’re going to have to get it. Imagine if I’m in big trouble! Put yourhands up! Uhhhh.. Get out of your car! Uhhhhh… So I’m in the front passenger’s seat,we’re at the traffic lights, and this car comes up next to us and this girl’s lookingat me. And I’m looking at her, she’s looking at me, I’m looking at her, she’s lookingat me, I’m looking at her. All she sees is my head, right? She has no idea that Ihave no arms and no legs. So I’m thinking, cool. I’m going to freak you out. So I get the seatbelt in my mouth, and I loosenit like this, so that I can freely move. And she’s looking at me like “why are youeating your seatbelt?’ So I pull it, the belt is loose, I can move. Now she’s looking at me, full 100% attentionand focus. And just imagine all you see is my head, all right? You might want to putup your hand to your face to cut off the rest of my body. So you can really see the effect,so…That’s it, exactly. Here we go, ready? I just did this. And herface, man. She was like — she nearly ran the red light, man. It was so good. My parents always said, Nick, you don’tknow what you can achieve until you try it. And the doctors looked at me and said, he’snot going to walk, he’s not going to go to school, he’s not going to do anythingin his life. And then my parents; they just loved me likecrazy, and said you’ve got to try. Try this, try that, try this, try that, and I’m thinkingsometimes, like, Mom and Dad, you’re crazy, I have no arms and no legs. How would I everbe able to do this or do that? But they encouraged me, and they loved me.And as human beings, we’re waiting for stuff like that, we all want love. Everybody sayit — loooooove. Very good. We all want love. I went to school, and Iwanted to be cool, you know. You go to school and you want to be accepted. So, you see theseguys, and you’re like, oh man, you know? Everyone swears, like every third sentence.F this, and F that, and F’n this, and F F, like, what, they think they’re cool,you know. And so I’m thinking, maybe I need to be like them to be cool. And then you compare each other with how welook and I wish I was smarter, I wish I was taller, I wish I was shorter, I wish I wasmore popular, I wish I did this, I wish I didn’t have that. I wish my life was different.That was me when I was about 8 years old; I looked at myself, and I looked at everybodyelse, and everyone else had more than me. And I’m asking, why? Why me? Have you everasked the why me questions, but get nowhere? If I had no answers from the doctors, andif I had no answers from my parents, I still have a choice, every day in my life, to keepgoing or give up. You see this book up here? This is my favorite book in the whole wideworld. This is my favorite book, the bible. And here I am – and here I am, and for me,that’s my full potential in all that I can be here on earth. And so encouragement takesme closer to all that I can be, and discouragement takes me away. You see, it only takes three seconds for someoneto tease me when I was at school, and just say ewwwww, you’re ugly. Ewww, you can’tdo this and you can’t do that. Some of you are thinking, like, man, seriously? You hadkids picking on you? How heartless are those kids? Picking on me with no limbs? You wouldprobably say, well, I’m not that bad. I wouldn’t pick on a kid with no limbs. Butwhy would you pick on anyone? Well, because it’s fun, it’s just culture. OK, we’llget to that. But for me, facing all that stuff? I’m gettingthese seeds, everyone say seeds, S-E-E-D-S, seeds. Have you seen the pictures of the sequoiareds up here in California? These huge trees. Like some of the trunks could be nearly asbig as this room. I’ve seen those photos where they’ve actually dug out a tunnelin a trunk of a tree — you can drive a full-size SUV right through it. That all started witha little seed. If you leave a seed of lies in your heartand in your mind, and you don’t know the truth? If you don’t know the truth, youwill die with the lie. I started dying, because I started believing what I was told. I want you to know the three things that Ineeded to come to in my life is the truth of my values, the truth of my purpose, andthe truth of my destiny. I want you to know something. In our mind, we put ourselves downall the time. I want to ask you today, do you think I’m cool enough to be your friend?But I don’t swear, I don’t use the F-bomb, am I still cool enough to be your friend?But I don’t tease people, am I still cool enough to be your friend? But I have no armsand no legs. Seriously. You would be my friend, even though I haveno arms, no legs. So you’re telling me it actually doesn’t matter, right? If it actuallydoesn’t matter, for how we look, then why do we tease one another for how we look ifit actually doesn’t matter? Why is it that we look ourselves in the mirror, and we say,well, we’re having fun! Oh yeah, man it’s just part of culture, man. There were twelve people one day teased me.Taking me away from my hope. 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Don’t worry, I won’tfall off, because if I did, I’d break my arm. But twelve people teased me one day. And Ican put a pretty brave face on but cry on the inside. For real. Oh, it doesn’t hurt!Yeah, it hurts. There was this one bully, I became his target for three weeks. And everytime I’d go by him — I was 13, he was 17. I was in my chair. I’m only 4’9″in my other chair, my old chair. He’s like 6′ something, so he’s huge, right? SoI’m looking up at him, and every time I’d go by him, he’s like, “Hey, there’sNick! He has no…” And you can imagine what he said. And I’m like, what’s hisproblem, man? So I would try to avoid him, and I was soembarrassed, because he would say it really loud and everybody would be looking and somewould be laughing. I’m like, what is this guy’s problem, man? So one day, after threeweeks, I went up to him and I said, “Hey”. He’s like, “Hey”. And I said, “Can you please stop it?” He said, “Stop what?” I said “Stop teasing me”. He said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Every time I walk by you say thatstuff”. He’s like, “What stuff?” He didn’tknow how to take me on. So I’m looking up at him and said, “Noman. Every time I walk by, you say exactly this, and I want you to stop. I forgive you,but stop it”. He’s like, “Oh, it’s not hurting you”. Now, I could have said, “No,” or I couldhave said yeah. It takes a level of humility to actually say, um, actually, I don’t likethat. It’s killing me. And I said, “Ah, yeah, it’s hurting me”. He said, “All right, I’m sorry man. Iwas just, you know, playing around”. I said, “Give me a hug”. He said, “What?” I said, “Give me a hug”. He’s like, “All right”. So I gave hima hug. I’m a hugging machine. We made the Guinness Book of World Records: 1,749 hugsin one year. We did it last year — my arms fell off, all right? The scary thing abouthugging so many people is that anyone can just pick me up and take me home. Like, whatam I going to do, like, –hit them or something? Pretty mean head-butt, right? I want you to know that you might be playingaround. I can pretty much say that 98% of you have teased someone in your life. I triedto commit suicide because of people who thought they were having fun, not knowing the hellthat I was going through. The people you’re teasing — what if the person you’re teasingis the person who’s thinking of committing suicide. What if the person you’re teasing is theone who’s trying to commit suicide, who hates their life because of you? You don’tknow if the person you are teasing is the son or daughter of a drunk at home gettingabused. And all they need is someone like you to keep on pushing them this way. We need hope, so find something else to do.Find positive things in your own life; I don’t care about how you look, I will never everever tease you. I will never tease you! I could tease you, I could be tough. Peoplethinking that bullying is tough? It ain’t tough! My wheelchair? This is tough. Thisthing, man, I’ll tell you something — you ready? This wheelchair. This thing’s so tough.When my friend built this for me, he said, you’re going to love it. I said what, doesit go fast? He said no, but it’s tough. And I said, well, what do you mean? He said,you’ll find out. The torque in these motors, at the bottomat the back. This thing. If someone’s holding it. I’m telling you, it can go 90 degrees.I went 80 degrees up, alright? Someone’s holding me to make sure I don’t tip back.My wife, she loves shopping with me, because she just jumps on the back, and we go shopping.She just shops and shops, because she doesn’t drop, right? We just go and do it; it’sfun. Now what I tried one day to do — you’llnever believe me, maybe you will, just know that every word that comes out of my mouthis not an exaggeration. One day, I needed to move a car. So I gotmy wife to put my car, my ’66 Chevelle, in neutral. It’s a two and a half ton car,and I backed it back with this thing. Two and a half — just this. Just like this,like nothing. This thing is tough. Guess what? The definition of tough means it’s strong.To show your strength, you need to do something that’s difficult. I would sound so stupidif I said hey guys, I got a matchbox car one day, and I got some fishing line, and I towedthat matchbox car all around all day. How tough is my BMW? That’s stupid. That’s the same thing with bullying. Youthink you’re tough? You’re trying to show your strength? That’s not your strength.Let me come back in ten years and let me get your three — anyone have a three year oldnephew? Anyone have a three year old nephew? Cool. Put your hands down. I will get any one of your three year oldnephews, bring them tomorrow night at where I’m speaking, and we’re going to put themup on stage, and let me show you how tough I am. We’ll get your three year old nephew,and we’ll put him up here, on the table, and let me tease him. Let me show you howtough I am. That’s what you are! I could pick on you, you biggest bullies. I couldpick on anything you like. Any singer, any music that you like. I could tease you, Icould tease your family, I could tease your friends, I could tease about the movies youthink are really cool, I could tease anything about you. I could tease you about your nose,your eyes, your teeth, your chin, your hair, your ears, your elbows, your knees, your whatever,man! I can tease you about anything. It ain’t hard, just like you can tease me. You want to know what tough is? Go to thepeople you tease, and say sorry. You want to know what tough is, go up to the peoplewho still tease you, and say, hey. Stop it, I forgive you, but please stop it. That’stough. I want you to know something, the truth ofwho you are. I don’t care what job you get. I don’t care. I don’t care how smart youare, everyone. I don’t care. I don’t care, I love you and I believe in you. I don’tcare if you end up being a janitor in this school, I’ll tell you why – because thejanitor in my high school inspired me to be a speaker. He changed my life. He said, youshould be a speaker, you know, and I said, you’re crazy! He said no really, you needto be a speaker. I said, stop it man. Four months later, he twisted my arm, and I saidyes. I spoke in front of ten people, then another ten, then another ten, then I foundmyself in front of 300 sophomore students. And three minutes into my speech, half thegirls were crying, and one girl in the middle of the room started weeping. She put up herhand and said “I’m so sorry, can I come up there and give you a hug.” And in frontof everybody, she came up and she hugged me, and she cried on my shoulder, and she whisperedin this ear. Thank you, thank you, thank you, no one’s ever told me that they love me.No one’s ever told me that I’m beautiful the way that I am. It was because my parents told me that I wasbeautiful that I am still here. Some of you don’t have those parents, and that’s whyI’m here. I love you and you’re beautiful just the way you are. Never, ever give up. How many schools do you think that I spoketo actually stopped bullying altogether? OK. Whoever said one, you are correct. One schoolout of 600, I got a letter from the headmaster, and he said Nick, you forever changed ourschool, blah blah blah. We haven’t seen any bullies pick on anybody for eight monthsstraight. We don’t know what happened, but in the best words that I can describe, there’sjust a new thought in the air that it just ain’t cool anymore. It just ain’t cool. I want to ask you: What are you going to do?Are you going to continue on? At the risk of knowing that in each section, this section,right here, five people already tried to commit suicide. That section there? Five people.When you extrapolate it out? What if the person you’re teasing is one of those and you haveno idea. Would you find something else to do? So, the change is up to you. If you want tosee more love in your school, be love. If 50% of the school come together and say youknow what, it just ain’t cool anymore the people who think it’s still cool, everytime they look down upon you, I want you to look up. I want you to imagine my face lookingat you. Because I’m telling you, everyone you’re teasing is my brother and my sister.And you’re my brother, and you’re my sister. And I’m asking you to stop. Love yourself a bit more, love each othera lot more.
Comments
Post a Comment