[Music] you [Music] when I was 12 years old I fell off my bike and I broke my left arm completely in half the lower part of my forearm came up at a 90 degree angle to the rest of my forearm they didn't want to do surgery because I was so young so they put me in traction at the hospital they set the bones as best they could and they put me in a cast up to my shoulder for three months after three months they took the cast off and they told me I'd be fine and I thought I was fine until eight years later when I was 20 years old and I was in college and my friend Carl was playing the guitar as the Carl showed me how to play the guitar and he tried and he failed and he thought I was an idiot and I thought I was an idiot and then we realized they put me back together wrong at the hospital when I was 12 you should be able to do this it's called supination when your palm is flat to the ceiling pronation when your palm is flat to the floor to play the guitar you have to turn your hand inside out and I can't turn my left hand over and it was in that moment that I realized why I had struggled at the drive-thru for so many years I thought all of us were struggling at the drive-thru but it turns out that it was just me because I can give them the money just fine but I can't get the change like sir you need to turn your hand over I'm like okay I said what you have to reach it out and like it was reaching it out my sister-in-law had a great idea she said I need a basket on a stick and just put it in there if you could just so it would seem like I have a weakness I have a problem I have a disability I need to fix it but then something interesting happened I went to Australian in Australia they drive on the left-hand side of the road so they drive on the right-hand side of the car does anybody know the first place that I drove when I drove in Australia for the first time I went to the drive-thru you bet I did because I wanted to know what it felt like to reach my right arm out the window oh so good and here's what's important about that story I'm disabled I'm damaged my left arm doesn't work I function terribly in the American drive-thru and yet I functioned perfectly in the Australian drive-thru not because I've changed Who I am but because I've changed where I am I haven't changed the person I've changed the place you see situations are powerful in situations can to spotlight on the best things about us or they can put the spotlight on the worst things about us what's interesting is we get to decide what situations we put ourselves in so what I learned in the Australian drive-through is that in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths I started learning this or I wish I would have learned this at a much younger age I was always in trouble at school because of three things I couldn't sit still be quiet or do what I was told teachers didn't like me very much they called me obnoxious rebellious inappropriate immature told me uh no self-discipline and no self-control if I couldn't fix those things I was never going to be successful my parents believed the same thing they called me motormouth in an effort to remind me that my constant problem was that I couldn't be quiet but then something interesting happened again I tried to fix those things for my whole childhood and into early adulthood but then I started noticing little signs that people liked it when I stood up they liked it when I talked they liked it when I did my own thing and maybe even rebelled a little bit and as an adult I became a college professor and it was my job to stand up and talk not to sit still and be quiet I became an entrepreneur and it was my job to make decisions and to run my own business not to do what other people tell me to do when I learned that in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths a few years ago I did my first Ironman Triathlon it's a 2.4 mile swim that's 3.8 kilometers it's a 112 mile bike 180 kilometers it's a 26.2 mile run 42 kilometers and I did the first one in 16 hours and 30 minutes that's not impressive there's an 83 year old Catholic nun named sister Madonna booter who did it in 16 hours and 35 minutes now she knows she lost to me she knows she needs to get better she's training for it but I'm not that I wasn't that amazing but when I finished people sent me Facebook message they sent me text messages they sent me voicemail messages praising me and rewarding me for being very very very active which is interesting because when I was a kid I was also very very very active what do we call kids that are very very very active I call him hyperactive we then pathologized it as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder then we give them medicine that supposedly fixes them and makes them better my whole life I got criticized and punished because I couldn't sit still be quiet and do what I was told and then I found Ironman triathlons and I got praised and rewarded for the very same thing when I was very very very active in one context I seem to have a tremendous weakness when I was very very very active in a different context it seemed like a tremendous strength in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths but this isn't just my story I started wondering is this true for other people and I discovered Matthias Schlitt he was born with a genetic abnormality called KT s and when you're born with KT s one of your four limbs will be gigantic in comparison to the others for him it's his right arm his right arm is three times the size of his left arm and it always will be there's no treatment there's no cure but Matthias litt found the perfect situation for a person who has a gigantic our right arm he became an arm wrestler and found tremendous success in fact he's feared by every other human being who does arm wrestling because he has all of the muscle where it matters and none of it where it doesn't and you arm wrestled by weight class Matthias litt didn't change who he was he changed where he was he didn't change the person he changed the place he found the perfect situation that transformed his obvious and glaring weakness into a tremendous strength in the right situation our weakness has become strengths Matt Stutzman didn't have a deformed arm he had no arms he was born with no arms and he took up archery that's not as obvious as armwrestling for Matthias litt he didn't just become better than people with arms he became better than everyone in the world he owns the world record for the longest most accurate shot in archery in recorded history I talked to him personally after an event and I asked him why it's so advantageous to not have arms and he said because I get too use my leg and my leg is bigger and stronger than anybody's arm could possibly be and that gives me more strength which gives me more endurance which gives me more stability which gives me more accuracy I'm better because I don't have arms in this particular situation when Matt Stutzman is anywhere else people see him as a person without arms when he's doing archery people see him as a world champion because in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths sometimes we need to help other people to find those situations we don't need to find them for ourselves we need to find them for other historic Hills son has a son with autism he noticed that two of the symptoms were hyper focus and doing the same thing over and over again thorkild Shawne worked in the software industry and noticed that great software testers had hyper focus and had to do the same thing over and over again he built a company called specialist stern in Denmark and they hire only people with autism to do software testing because it's the perfect fit they take someone who has a disability and they turn it into a competitive advantage they don't change the person they change the place they don't change who the person with autism is they change where the person with autism is and they've been so successful that the global software giant s aap is currently looking for hundreds of people with autism from all over the world to do software testing for them because they've learned that in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths now some of you're like Dave I don't have a gigantic right arm I'm unfortunately I was born with arms instead of being armless I feel like I'm at a disadvantage here how could my weaknesses possibly be strength so let's go with some more basic sorts of things that can happen to people so let's play a little game I'm gonna give you a weakness and you think of where maybe that person might fit so if you're too critical what's a job for someone who's too critical editor I love it right be a critic right that's a great one though I edit ER your job is to fix those things be a critic be a movie critic be a music critic be a food critic your job is to be critical when you find the right situation that weakness becomes a strength let's try again to controlling some of your like spouse or partner that's not a job but I see where you're coming from right there's actually a job called controller right there's air traffic controllers your job isn't to be a social worker for the pilots it's to tell them what to do it's to be in charge not to be open to their ideas and let's do one more - analytical right what's the job it's obvious it's to be an analyst right and here's what's interesting when you're told your whole life you're too analytical and then you get a job as an analyst what are people probably gonna ask for more of from you they're gonna ask you to be even more analytical and that's when you know you've found the right spot when people are asking for more of the thing that everyone else has told you you need less of that's when you know you've found the right fit in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths we all believe in self-improvement but maybe self-improvement isn't about changing ourselves maybe it's about changing the situation we all believe in personal development but maybe personal development isn't changing the person it's changing the place because in the right situation our weaknesses become strengths thank you very much [Applause] [Music] you [Music]