Nick Vujicic: 7 Principles of Success

Saigon Success Summit 2019

Ho Chi Minh City

13th December 2019

Who is Nick Vujicic?

I first came across Nick Vujicic’s videos on Facebook, a few years ago. He’s an incredibly inspiring person. He was born with a rare condition, which meant he had no arms and no legs, but this hasn’t held him back. He has mastered a number of skills you would think impossible for someone in his position, like swimming, playing golf and playing the drums. He seems to be relaxed and happy, appears to enjoy life, and has a great sense humour.

Despite having been dealt one of the hardest hands you can imagine, he has still made a fantastic life for himself and his family. He is from Australia and works as a motivational speaker. On the 13th December 2019, Nick came to Ho Chi Minh City, to the event ‘Saigon Success summit’. At the summit I listened, as he told us inspiring stories and gave us his 7 principle of success.

Nick’s Purpose

When Nick was at school, someone told him he would be a speaker. Who told him he would be a speaker? Not his mum or dad, not his friends, and not his teachers. The person who told him… The janitor!

One day, Nick was coming out of the toilets where the janitor was cleaning up. This was where the janitor told him, he would be a speaker.

“Why?!” Nick asked, this idea seemed absurd to him.

“Because you have a story”, the janitor told him.

The janitor wanted Nick to do a talk, but Nick refused, the janitor asked a number of times but Nick kept saying no. Eventually the janitor had to run after him and persuade him, until Nick agreed to do the talk.

When it came time to do the talk, Nick spoke in front of a small group of people. He didn’t think it was anything too special, but at the end a girl in the audience started crying.

“Why are you crying?” Nick asked, and looked her in the eyes. She told him, he had touched her heart. It was at this point, that Nick realised he had found what he wanted to do with his life.

The 7 principles of success

1. Value yourself

You are invaluable as a human. Your worth is not dictated by how much money you have or how much attention you get, you are invaluable as you are.

When Nick was 8 years old, he thought he would never get married and never get a job. At 10 years old, he tried to commit suicide. He thought his limitations meant life was not worth living. But he was wrong. As he grew older, Nick learnt life was more than just having what everyone else had. He found the value in himself. He’s now married, has children of his own, and runs several businesses. It’s not what you have or what you do that give you value; you are already invaluable as a human being.

2. You have to try and do something

Nothing is free in life; you have to do, whatever you want to do, for yourself.

Nick’s parents are from Ukraine. When he was a child, his parents were tough on him. When he wanted something, they wouldn’t just buy it for him. Despite his condition, they wanted him to earn for himself. Nick was determined, so learnt to vacuum, with no arms and no legs; this is quite an impressive feat. He got paid $2 a week for vacuuming, so he could save a little for what he wanted.

3. Failure is part of education

When you try to be successful, when you are ‘trying something’, you will fail at times. Failure is part of our education; it’s how we learn to be successful.

One day, Nick was doing a talk at a school; there was a boy there who was upset. The boy had wanted to be a pilot, but he was too tall for the cockpit, so he wasn’t able to follow his dream. Nick gave his talk, hoping to inspire the boy to find a way to have a good life. A few years later, Nick went back to the same school, and the same boy was there again. He seemed upset again, and Nick was worried; was the boy still unhappy with his life? But the boy wasn’t upset; he was emotional because he was so happy! He had given up his dreams of being a pilot, but that had opened up the door for a new dream. The boy was now playing drums in a band, playing to the public, and he loved it.

4. It takes time; be patient and intentional

The fourth principle is all about time. You have to be patient, being successful takes time.

You have to manage your time, and spend it wisely:

• Take the time to meet people you aspire to be like.

• When’s the right time to start your business. If you are married does your spouse agree with your vision?

• If you want to start a business, but feel you don’t have time, you can still invest 7 hours a week in to your business, that’s just 1 hour a day.

• When you have a business, you don’t need to do everything yourself. You should not be doing everything, just what you need to do.

At university, Nick was being invited to go to speak to groups about his life. He was happy doing this, even though, he wasn’t paid for them. However, they were taking up a lot of his time. One night he came home from one, and his mother was angry. She wanted to know what he had been doing.

“You go out with these people, you come back happy and they are crying. What are you doing?” Nick said he was talking to them, and that’s what he wanted to do, he wanted to be a speaker.

Nick’s mother was not impressed, she asked him:

Do you know any speakers you can learn from?

No.

Do you get paid for speaking?

No.

Do you have any invitations to go and do talks?

No.

So she told him to stop wasting his time and focus on his studies. Nick realised it wasn’t the right time for him then to be a speaker, and he completed his studies.

“When you are doing something new, people around you are so smart! They will tell you a million reasons why you’re going to fail.”

5. Have confidence… Take baby steps

When you set out on a big challenge, it can be scary. To overcome this, take small steps. Steps you can accomplish, to take you towards your goal.

When Nick was a child, he wanted to get something from up on a high shelf, but he couldn’t reach it. He asked his mum, and she said, “Get it yourself!” Nick was not happy, how could he, a small boy with no arms and legs, get this thing from that high-shelf?

He looked around saw a small stall, so he hopped over and managed to push the stall across the room. Next, he needed to get on the stall…. He was scared it, was high, he may fall. But he wanted the thing, so he jumped and landed on the stall. So now, he was on the stall on his stomach, under the shelf.

He needed to get upright; there was a corner of another shelf, he could reach with his shoulder. He pushed against the shelf with his head and shoulder, with all his strength. It really hurt, but he didn’t care, he really wanted the thing. He got up and with his teeth; he could just reach his goal. He stretched and took it in mouth. He had achieved his goal! And what was the thing?... I don’t know! Nick didn’t tell us or I missed it, sorry!!

6. Remind yourself of your dream

It’s important to remind yourself of your dream, why you do what you do and to give you motivation to take action every day.

As a child, Nick and his family always prayed before dinner. They prayed for those that couldn’t feed themselves. This had inspired him; he wanted to feed hungry children.

At his Dad’s direction, Nick went to University to study accounting. His Dad said you have no arms and no legs, but you have a brain. Nick’s Dad told him, he couldn’t do things for himself, so his whole life he will need people to help him. How can he do this? His Dad’s advice was to run a business, get employees and pay the employees to help him. How old was Nick when his Dad told him this?... 6 years old!

Nick studied finance and the stock market. He learnt you can use money to make money, he thought it was great! At university, he watched the stock market for months and saw a trend in Dunlop tyres. Their stock price was falling from 73 to 72 in the morning, rising to 74 in the afternoon and dropping back to 73 each night. So every morning, he would go to the computer in the university, buy Dunlop stock in the morning and sell in the afternoon, before the price went back down. To motivate himself, he put a photo of an orphan in the mirror in his room, to remind himself he was doing it to help her. Oh, and Nick now runs 3 non-profit organisations.

7. Never give up

When you have a dream, a purpose, you have to work towards it. Achieving success will not come easily, when you face failure and rejection, you have to keep going.

After Nick gave his first talk, when he saw a girl crying at his words, his purpose was born! He was to be an inspirational speaker. He had to be patient; he finished University, and got his degree. Then it was time to follow his dream.

He set out to be a speaker, but he had no sales training, no marketing experience and no website. He started calling local schools, telling them who he was and what he did. He got rejected, again and again and again. He called 52 schools and failed 52 times to get hired as a speaker. But each time he called and failed, he got a little better.

On the 53rd call, something strange happened. When Nick asked the school if they wanted a motivational speaker, instead of rejection, they said, “We’ll call you back”. They called him back and said “Ok”, he asked them to pay him $50 and they said “Ok”! However, when he checked the map, it turned out the school was miles away. He had to pay his brother to take him there, how much did he pay his brother? $50!

On the way there, his brother asked Nick, how many people he was talking to, Nick didn’t know. His brother asked how long he was speaking for, Nick didn’t know. When he got there it turned out he was speaking to 10 people for 5 minutes!! Nick felt terrible; it was going to be a complete waste of time and effort. When he got home that night, he cried in his bed, he felt he was never going to make it.

The next day Nick got a phone call. It was another school! They needed him to talk about bullying. Someone from the school, where he had given his talk, thought he had spoken really well, and had recommended him. This time he was talking for 20 minutes to 100 people! From there he got referral after referral. His speaking career had finally started, his dreams were coming true!

“You don’t know what’s possible until you know what’s impossible!”

The 7 principles and how to achieve them

Nick Vujicic’s gave us his 7 principles for success in life and business:

1. Value yourself

2. You have to try and do something

3. Failure is part of education

4. It takes time

5. Confidence with baby steps

6. Remind yourself of your dream

7. Never give up

To act on these principles, Nick said, you have to have courage. What is courage? Is it not having fear? No, courage is overcoming fear.

To give an example, Nick told us he was going to jump off the table! When Nick gave his talk, he was on a table, so everyone could see him. The table was about 3 foot high and Nick has no arms and no legs, so this really would be something! Surely he would land on his face!

Nick explained how you have to have courage; he gave us a story about having courage and how he had over come his fear. As he spoke, he went back and forth towards the table edge…

He asked us how “…bad do you want your goal? Why do you want it?”

Why you do something, that takes courage, is important. You need a strong purpose and goal to overcome your fear. Find your purpose and make a goal, make it something you really want to do, not something just for the money. Learn from someone that does what you want to do and do it.

Nick went closer and closer to the table edge and then he… stopped!

He didn’t have any reason to jump off the table edge. Nick joked, if he jumped off he might break his arm!? Why would he jump off? If there was fire in the room, then yes, he would have a purpose, he would jump. But right then he had no purpose, there was nothing to push him past his fear.

To go after something you want to do, you need courage; to have courage you need a goal and purpose.

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How many of Nick’s principles do you already follow?

Will you use these steps to impact your life?

You can comment below, or even better go to my Facebook page Saigon Success; join the discussion and see what else we’re talking about.

I hope you found this really useful.

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