Nick Vujicic: Messenger of hope

SINGAPORE — Nick Vujicic (picture) has flown all around the world as a motivational speaker, inspiring millions with his outlook on life despite having no limbs.

The 4,650 seats to his Singapore show on Sept 7 have sold out, yet this man’s top priority today is not his career but his six-month-old son.

“I want to be an excellent father and an excellent husband, more than an excellent provider … More than (being) an excellent speaker, even transforming lives, I want to be an excellent daddy first,” said Mr Vujicic in an email interview with TODAY.

And that means making more time for his wife and baby. The 30 year-old got married in February last year to Ms Kanae Miyahara, whom he had met at one of his speaking engagements.

“It was love at first sight,” he said of his Mexican-Japanese wife. “She really took my breath away.”

Interestingly, it was Ms Miyahara’s older sister whom a mutual friend had wanted to hook him up with. After “a bit of communication confusion” was sorted out, he and Ms Miyahara started dating six months later.

Like any other couple, they have had their share of misunderstandings. “But the greatest thing is having communication and talking. If there’s something wrong, we both know it, so it’s better to talk about it sooner or later, get it out of the way … and move on,” he said.

This February, their son Kiyoshi was born. The new father now finds it “very, very difficult to be away”.

“You know, my son, I want him to see the love that his dad has for him. But that’s not determined by how much money Dad makes to get (him) into the best university. It’s about time,” said Mr Vujicic, who hopes to have three or four children eventually

So, the world will see less of him next year, when he takes a break from his speaking engagements to spend time with his family. In 2014, he intends to spend only five or six weeks away from his family.

BULLIED IN SCHOOL

Clearly, family ties mean a lot to Mr Vujicic, whose motivation in life is to “be a miracle for someone else”. He credits his parents as “the greatest foundation of truth”, who gave him “a foundation of self-image and confidence through faith, values and attitudes”.

He also attributes his speaking career success — which kicked off when he was 19, when motivational speaking was in its infancy in his home country, Australia — to the “seeds of love and encouragement from my family”.

If his speaking career had not taken off, Mr Vujicic said he would have started his own accounting and financial planning practice — subjects he holds a double degree in.

Mr Vujicic was born in Melbourne without arms and legs. But he has two small feet, one of which has two toes — which he calls his “chicken drumstick”. With his “drumstick”, he has learnt to type, write, kick a ball, get a glass of water and even shave. He can also swim, play golf and skydive.

But as a boy, he was not always so comfortable with his disability.

One of the first physically disabled students integrated into a mainstream school in Australia, he was bullied and struggled with depression and loneliness from when he was eight.

At 10, he tried to drown himself in a bathtub. Fortunately, his suicide attempt failed and Mr Vujicic has since become the emblem of positivity for the millions of people he has reached out to during his speaking engagements.

Through his difficult years, the young Vujicic focused on the good that was in his life, such as how he thought his eyes were beautiful. “The fact that I said I like my eyes was sort of like a coping mechanism because of the bullying in my life,” he said.

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

“You know, I had all these negative things and a list of things that I couldn’t do and I didn’t have — so it’s powerful when you can embrace what you cannot change, accept it, change the things you can change and know the difference between what you can change and what you can’t change.”

“I can’t change my disability, but I can change the way I look at it,” he said. “There are disappointments, there are failures, but I’m not a failure and that’s what I encourage myself with — to know that I’m going to learn something … and failure equals education.”

He said one of his inspirations was Mr Philip Toth, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, a neuro-degenerative illness, at 22 and to whom Mr Vujicic dedicated his first book, Life Without Limits.

“Instead of feeling sorry for himself and giving up, he actually started a website that encouraged people all around the world. And I thought to myself: Wow, this guy can’t talk and he can’t walk, but he’s still inspiring people — what am I going to do? So, that was what happened at age 19.”

Mr Vujicic said he started his speaking engagements because he saw the value of even just one person coming to see “real hope”. That, to him, “was worth all the failure”.

This outlook is what keeps Mr Vujicic going in his travels to more than 44 countries, where he has spoken more than 2,000 times. During his current Asian tour alone, he has reached out to 400 million people.

Mr Vujicic wants to help others transform their lives — by offering hope. “I know that what I have to say may very well change their lives. And hope is invaluable, you can’t put a price on hope, you can’t buy hope. And I’m just thankful that I’m called to communicate the message of hope,” he told TODAY.

As Mr Vujicic makes his way to Singapore, the audience here can expect to hear a message of love. While cultures differ and some jokes may not work in every country, he believes he has found a formula that works for everyone.

“I think the greatest thing is love, you can’t go wrong with love, even when talking about how we need to be better people. I do it all in love because everything is driven by love,” he said.

As the motivational speaker develops his career and many talents further — he is also an author, musician and actor with a best acting award to boot — Mr Vujicic hopes to star in more films, release a music album, shoot a documentary and, eventually, host his own talk show.

But don’t expect him to hear him sing — Mr Vujicic has told reporters that he is not yet ready to showcase his vocal talents in front of live audiences.

Nick Vujicic ‘Live’ in Singapore

Saturday, Sept 7, 7.30pm, The Star Theatre @ The Star Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are sold out.