Beauty in Your Disadvantage

thank you so much for having me here

today

i’m really excited to talk to you about

the topic of beauty and

intersectionality

my name is aaron golub i became the

first legally blind division one athlete

to play in a game when i played football

at tulane university

i went on to become a team captain and

an nfl free agent

now i’m an entrepreneur and a speaker

and i’m really thrilled to be here

and dive into this topic and talk to you

about my thoughts and opinions

when you think of beauty

intersectionality you probably think

about finding the beauty in certain

situations in

certain areas of life and i do as well

what i want to talk to you guys about

today though and specifically point out

is

finding the beauty in your disadvantages

finding the beauty in any obstacle any

challenge

any issue that’s going on in your life

how can you make that your advantage

how can you make that your asset your

resource

that’s what i was able to do with my

vision i’m so thankful and so

blessed today that i was born legally

blind

because it’s allowed me to do incredible

things meet amazing people

and have outstanding experiences and if

i wasn’t legally blind

none of that would have happened i was

able to find that beauty in what most

people would see as a disadvantage

and turn it into my greatest advantage

my greatest asset and my greatest

resource

because of how i think of it

because of how i want to have myself

perceive

being legally blind

i remember when i got my first job after

school

i graduated in may of 2018 from tulane

university

i started working at a company and it

was very challenging

it was very visual role and wasn’t the

best fit for me

and about six months in december my

manager and i sat down together and he

said aaron

i know you’re struggling let’s find a

way let’s talk through how we can

you know what we can do to help with

this

and realistically i knew that he was

essentially saying look aaron

you’re struggling which i know i was we

need to have more accountability on you

in case i have to fire you in a few

months and i need to cover my ass

and that brought back all these feelings

from when i was a kid

of why me

when i was a kid i was never the most

athletic person i was never the most

confident person

i was often picked last for sports and

it was hard

i tried several sports growing up

whether it be baseball or basketball or

soccer or hockey

and none of them really worked it was

difficult

and it wasn’t until i found football

that i really was

playing a sport that i could actually

play and be a part of a team

when i started in seventh grade i

began as an offense and defensive

lineman i knew i couldn’t be

you know a quarterback or a wide

receiver the positions that everyone

wants to be i could never catch a ball

40 yards down the field because of my

vision and you know just to give a

little picture for those of you that

don’t know what being legally blind is

for me

i have no vision in my right eye and

extremely limited in my left and in my

left eye

i have a hole probably the size of half

of a dime and out of that hole

my vision is 2200 so if you have perfect

vision if you have 20 20 vision

what you would see it about 200 feet

away i would see it about 20 feet away

and that’s what my vision looks like

through that small hole

and so i was an offensive defensive

lineman in seventh grade

it was fine you know i was undersized

legally blind but at that time it was

about learning the game being a part of

the team

and it wasn’t necessarily about the

competitiveness of football and

you know accomplishing great things at

that age it was about learning and that

was okay

but once i became a sophomore in high

school i was a third string junior

varsity

offense and defensive lineman and i i

said i had enough of this

i was sick of it i wanted to play on

varsity i wanted to play in college i

wanted to play division 1 football

and if you are a sophomore in high

school no matter the sport

whether it be football baseball swimming

soccer tennis basketball any sport

and you’re gonna play division one you

are probably starting on varsity you’re

getting a lot of playing time on varsity

that just is how it is

and that wasn’t the case for me and so i

had to do two things and first off i had

to

say if i want to play in college i need

to figure out the best position for you

to do so and i found long snapping

and for those of you that don’t know

what long snapping is i’m the person on

puns and field goals who

crouch down and pick up the football

throw up between my legs to the punter

holder

for the punt or the extra point or field

goal and then i’d have to block the

person in front of me

and i realized that if i got good enough

at long snapping i

might have an opportunity to play in

college i might

the next step was because of my

disadvantage because of my disability

i realized that i had to work 10 times

harder than everyone else

just to be as good as them and so from

now on out i would wake up at 5am every

day i’d go practice long snapping i’d go

to school

i’d go to practice i’d lift weights and

that was my day for the next several

years because i knew what i had to do

to achieve success i knew that

if i found the beauty in this situation

if i found the beauty

in my disadvantage and this hard work

that i could do whatever it takes to

achieve my goal

and that i could turn my disadvantage of

being legally blind into my greatest

advantage

so many people don’t see it that way so

many people accept their disadvantage

and focus on it as a negative

what i want to tell you is what you

focus on is what attracts to you

when you think of things if you think of

your disadvantages if you think of the

negative things in your life

why you haven’t accomplished things

those are what’s going to attract to you

if you think of creating success

positivity

accomplishing great things that’s what’s

going to attract you

i promise you because that’s how life

works

and i want to prove it to you right now

with a little exercise so first off

wherever you’re watching this look

around the room try and find something

green

take a minute just look look for

something green it might be a green pen

or a notebook

might be an apple or a piece of fruit

just just take a look

okay now i want you all to shut your

eyes

take a second and close your eyes and

relax

think of the color green

green grass a green plant

green fruit a green car

driving down the highway

green leaves on trees

a green notebook just think of green

now open your eyes immediately look for

something great in your room again

it was much easier right because what

you focus on what you think of is what

attracts to you

when you think of your disadvantages

disadvantages will come to you

when you think about how can i find the

beauty in this situation

how can i find the beauty in this

intersectionality and make it my

advantage

success positivity that beauty will all

come towards you

and that’s what you need to focus on but

it doesn’t just come overnight

it comes with a price and that’s the

price of hard work everyone in life has

the strength

of the choice of two struggles the

struggle of discipline or the struggle

of regret

i never want to be old and regret

everything that i wasn’t able to

accomplish

that’s why i choose discipline that’s

why successful people choose discipline

i know that if i put in hard work

put an effort put in my time and

disciplined every single day

it doesn’t matter what my disadvantage

is because i can find the beauty in any

situation and i can make that my

advantage

i can make it my greatest asset and my

greatest resource and that’s what i was

able to do and continue to do with being

legally blind

your challenge might be different than

mine you might have a different

disability

you might be an alcoholic or have an

addiction you might come from a broken

home or maybe just lost your job and

struggling to pay your bills

but if you can take a step back focus on

the positivity

focus on putting in that time and that

effort and that hard work

you can find the beauty in that

situation that disadvantage and that

obstacle

you can turn into your advantage you can

make it the moment moment

you can make it the scenario the point

in your life that changes the rest of

your life for your future

do the things that you should do do the

things that you need to do

you can accomplish anything you want if

you take a look at the situation and

find the beauty in it

so many people don’t do that though so

many people take a look at their

situation and say

this is my disadvantage because this is

what the circumstances are in front of

me

i don’t let my circumstances define me i

define my circumstances

i find the beauty in the situation the

beauty and the circumstance

the beauty and the problem in front of

me and that’s what you can do as well if

you can find the beauty in every single

issue

every single challenge every single

obstacle within your life you can

accomplish anything that you want

you can make the impossible possible i

promise you that

you can do anything you want you can

turn your disadvantage into your

greatest advantage

i was able to become the first legally

blind division 1 athlete to play in a

game

go on to become a team captain and nfl

free agent

and now an entrepreneur and a speaker by

finding the beauty

in situations the beauty in

intersectionality

if you take one thing away from this

today it’s that no matter your

disadvantage

no matter your challenge no matter your

obstacle your issue your problem in

front of you

you can turn it into your advantage by

finding the beauty in that situation

the beauty in that intersectionality you

can make the impossible possible i

promise you

thank you all so much for having me here

today i really appreciate it i’ve

enjoyed talking to you all about the

beauty and intersectionality and i hope

that

my speech really benefit you and you

took something away from it