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