I kinda wanna tell you a little bit more the, I don't wanna say basics

cause we don't really know anything about my syndrome. I was born with this very

very rare syndrome

that only two other people in the world including myself that we know of , have

have basically what this syndrome causes is that I cannot gain weight

yes it does sound as good as it is

I could eat absolutely whatever I want whenever I want

and I won't really gain any weight. I'm gonna be 25 in March

and I never weighed over about 64 pounds my entire life

when I was in college

I hid, oh I didn't hide, I really new it was there

but is the giant tube of twinkies

doughnuts chips skittles and my roommate

would say I could hear you at 12:30 reaching under your bed

to get food. But I'm like "you know what it's alright, I can do these things"

because there are benefits to this syndrome. there are benefits

to not being able to gain weight their benefits to being visually impaired

there are benefits to being kinda really small. A lot of people think, Lizzie

how in the world are you saying there's benefits when you can only see out of

one eye let me tell you what the benefits are cuz they're

great

I wear contacts - 'contact'

Half of contacts

When I wear my reading glasses - half of prescription

if somebody is annoying me

being rude, stand on my right side

It's like you're not even there. I don't even know you're standing there

right now, If I stand like this, I have no clue

that there's this whole side of the room

Also, being small I am very willing to

volunteer myself to go to

Weight Watchers, go to

some gym and say: hi, I'm Lizzie

I will be your poster child

put my face on whatever you need it will say

hi I used this program - look how well it worked!

Even though there are really amazing things that have come from this syndrome, there are also things that

have been very very difficult, as you can imagine

Growing up, I was raised 150 percent normally

I was my parents first child

and when I was born the doctors told my mom

your daughter has a no amniotic fluid around her, at all.

So when I was born it was a miracle that I came out screaming

the doctors told my parents, we just wanna warn you

expect your daughter to never be able to talk, walk

crawl, think or do anything by herself.

now its first time parents you could think that my parents would say

Oh, no

why why are we getting our first child to have

all these unknown problems.

the first thing they told the doctor was we want to see her and we're going to

take her home

and love her in researching the best of our abilities

and that's what they did.

I credit pretty much everything that I've done in my life to my parents. My dad is here

with me today, and my mom is at home watching "Hi, mom!"

she is recovering from a surgery. She has been the glue that held her

family together giving me the strength to see that she's going through so much

but she has this fighting spirit that

she's instilled in me I

That I had still proudly been able to stand in front of people and say you know what

I had a really difficult life but that's okay

that's okay things have been scary

things have been taught. One of the biggest things that I had to deal with

growing up was something that I'm pretty sure every single one of us in this room

has dealt with before

can you guess what that is ?

Starts with a 'B'. Can you guys guess it? - Boys!

Boys??

Bullies!

I know what you all are thinking

I should have come....why can't I sit here with them?

I have to deal with bulling a lot but as I said I was raised very normally

so when I started kindergarten I had absolutely no idea that I look different

no clue I couldn't see that I look different from other kids

I think of it kind of as a big slap of reality for a five year old

because I went on to school first day, decked out with pocahontas gear

I was ready! I went in with my backpack that look like a turtle shell

cause it was bigger than me and I walked up to a little girl

smiled at her, she look up at me like I was a monster

like I was the scary thing she'd ever seen in her life

my first reaction was - she is really rude

I am fun kid and she is the one missing out so I'll just go over here

and play with blocks ... or boys

I thought the day was gonna get better and unfortunately it didn't

The day kind of got worse and worse and a lot of people just wanted to have absolutely nothing

to do with me and I couldn't understand why.

why, what did I do?

I didn't to anything to them. In my mind I was still a really cool kid.

So I had to go home and ask my parents: what's wrong with me? what did I do? why don't they like me?

and they sat me down and said: Lizzie the only thing that's different about you

is that your smaller than the other kids you have a syndrome

but it's not gonna define who you are. they said go to school

pick your head up smile continue to be yourself and people see that you're just like them.

And so that's what I did.

I want you to think and

ask yourself this in your head right now what defines you?

who are you? Is it where you come from

Is it your background, is it your friends? what is it? what defines who you are as a parson?

it's taking me a very long time to figure out

what defines me. For so long I thought that what defined me was

my outer appearance. I thought that

my little tiny legs and my little arms and my little face was ugly

I thought I was disgusting. I hated when I would wake up in the morning and I was

going to middle school and looking in the mirror getting ready thinking

can I just scrub this syndrome off? it would make my life

so much easier if I could just scrub it off! I could look like the other kids I

wouldn't have to buy clothes that had Dora the Explorer on it. I wouldn't have to

buy stuff that are of dazzled when I was trying to be like the cool kid

I would wish and pray and

hope and do whatever I could to pray that I would wake up in the morning I would be

different and wouldn't have to deal with these struggles. it's what I wanted every

single day

and every single day I was disappointed. I had an amazing amazing support system

around me. who never

pitty me, who are in there to pick me up if I'm sad

who are there to laugh with me during the good times and they taught me

that even though I have this syndrome, even though things are hard

i cant that defined me. My life was put into my hands

just like your lives are put into yours. You are the person

in the front seat of your car. You are the one who decides whether your car goes down

a bad path or a good path. You are the one that decides what defines you

let me tell you it could be really easy

I mean really hard to figure out what what defines you. Cause there are times

when I would get so annoyed and frustrated and I don't care what defines me.

When I was in high school I found a video

unfortunately, that somebody posted of me, labeling me the world's ugliest woman

There were four million views for this video, 8 seconds long,

no sound, thousands of comments. People saying Lizzie

please please just do the

world a favor put a gun to your head and kill yourself.

Think about that. If people told you that

strangers told you this. I cried my eyes out of course and I was ready to kinda fight back and

something kinda clicked in my head and I thought I'm was gonna leave it alone

I kind of started realizing that my life is in my hands

I could either choose to make this really good

or I can choose to make this really bad. I could either be grateful and open my

eyes and realize the things that I do have and make

those the things that define me. I can't see out of one eye

I can see out of the other. I might get sick a lot

I have really nice hair.

You guys are like the best little section right here

Oh I loose my train of thought!

okay where was I?

Hair! okay thank you thank you thank you

So I could either choose to be happy or I could choose to kind of

be upset with what I have and still kind of complain about it

but then I started realizing: Am I gonna let the people who call me a monster define me?

am I gonna let the people who said kill it with fire define me?

No I'm gonna let

my goals and my success and my accomplishments be the things that define me.

not outer appearance not the fact that I'm visually impaired not the fact that

I have this syndrome that nobody knows what it is

so I told myself I'm gonna work my butt off

and do whatever I could to make myself better because in my mind

the best way that I could get back at all those people

who made fun of me, who peesed me

to call me ugly and call me a monster was to make myself better

and to show them you know what, tell me those negative things

I'm gonna turn them around and I'm gonna use them as a ladder to climb up to my goals

that's what I did! I told myself I wanted to be motivational speaker

I wanna write a book, graduate college have my own family, my own career

eight years later, I'm sitting in front of you still doing motivational speaking

first thing

I accomplished it. I wanted to write a book, in a couple weeks

I will be submitting the manuscripts for my third book

I wanted to graduate college and I just finished

College!

I'm getting a degree in Communication Studies from Texas State University

in StMarcus and I have a minor in English I

really try to use real life experience while I was getting my degree

and my professes were not having it

But, I wanted to have lastly with my own family and my own career

and family part kinda down the line. In my career

I feel like I'm really doing well with it

considering the fact that when I decided I wanted to be a motivational speaker

I went home, I stand in front of my laptop went to Google

typed in: how to be a motivational speaker

I'm not even joking. I worked my butt off

I used the people who are telling me that I couldn't do this

to motivate me I use their negativity to light my fire to keep going

use that use that use that negativity that you have in your life to make

yourself better

because I guarantee you

guarantee you, you will win

I want to end with asking you again

I want you to leave here and ask yourself

what defines you? but remember

Brave starts here!! thank you