[Music] ladies and gentlemen the topic of this session is 20 minutes for the next 20 years of your life with Nick santonastaso founder of Victorious International the doctor classified me with handh heart syndrome are you ready to tell is The Impossible is Nick s Nick santoo welcome back to max out with Ed my that this man to my left I think is one of the most inspiring people on planet Earth today welcome to Beijing at the time of my birth I was the 12th baby in medical history that they've ever seen this happen to and
out of the 12 eight of them have passed away due to undeveloped organs like any other 12-year-old Nick Santano staso enjoys football skateboarding and playing video games and while these may sound like simple everyday activities for Nick they are anything but he is one boy who defies the odds it's not about how many times we fall down it's about how many times we get up and keep moving forward and an unbelievable public speaker for the record that you're going to hear about in a minute but this is Nick saso have you ever felt like you
were invisible give the have you ever felt like you weren't good enough raise your hand if at least one time in your life you said why me look around the room it's everyone we all get a taste of that victim mentality why me why do I have to be born like this why do I have to be born with no legs and one arm why do the kids have to make fun of me why do I have to go through these challenges what I've realized over the 23 years of my life it's not the physical
body that holds us back but it's the mindset the biggest disability you can have is a bad mindset [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's an honor to be here with you here today the reason why it's an honor is because rooms like this is where where real transformation happens this is a room where real decisions make a difference in the world and this is where real change is going to change the world forever so again would you please give yourself a round of applause for being here [Applause] today this is also a great honor because I'm not
supposed to be here I'm not even supposed to be alive you see if we look up at the slide in 1996 I was born with a super rare genetic disorder my parents went in for a late ultrasound they sat them down and they pulled the baby up on the screen and suddenly everybody started to freak out they said what's wrong what's going on with my baby they said well from the looks of it it doesn't look like your baby's limbs are being developed they said it looked like he's missing his legs his arms and his
face might be messed up in that moment they classify with what we call hand heart syndrome hand heart syndrome is a super rare genetic disorder that either leaves the babies with undeveloped limbs or undeveloped organs at the time of my birth I was the 12th baby in medical history that they've ever seen this happen to and out of the 12 eight of those babies passed away due to undeveloped organs they gave me a 30% chance to live in that moment my parents made a decision the decision to focus on the 30% chance of me living
versus the 70% chance of me dying my mom went forth with a pregnancy as soon as I was born they took me and rushed me into a private room to do tests on my organs and I'm proud to say that my organs came back 100% healthy and the only thing that was affected were my limbs if we go to the next slide when I was born my parents were very scared they had no idea what was what my life was going to look like my dad took me and he took me into a private room
he told me this as an adult he took me into a private room and he looked me in my eyes and he said Nick I promise you I will be your arms and legs until my very last breath now the reason why I share that is because the environment my parents put me and cultivated me as a leader and ultimately allowed me to change the world you see from an early age my parents sat me down they said Nick the world's not going to adapt to you you're going to have to adapt to the world
you have to figure out how to do things Nick's way and so I'll give you an example from an early age my parents would sit me down and they would put my food in front of me they would say figure it out or they would put my clothes in front of me and they would say figure it out and what that did was two things two valuable insights that all of us as Leaders can be reminded of you see all of you are very smart individuals we have some of the most smartest people in the
world but what I've realized teaching over a million people live from stage is most leaders don't need to be taught they need to be reminded and so let remind you of two powerful insights that can change the quality of our life and change the quality of our people's life the first thing when we create the right environment we must understand and identify our relationship with failure you see often times humans want to want to run away from failure they don't want to experience failure but the truth is the worst failure that you can have in
your life is not attempting not executing not implementing not making the decision the more we fail the more we get clarity the more we fail the more we get data the more we fail the more we can execute and get to the next level so that's the first Insight the second thing that that environment cultivated me into was I was forced to become solution oriented one of the biggest pattern that keeps most people stuck is they focus most of their energy on the problem and not the solution and if you have a small problem you
can focus all your energy on the problem and it becomes massive and overwhelming and so with the right environment it forc me to be solution oriented and I can assure you we must lead from the front and so if we can cultivate environments that allow us to be solution oriented it's going to trickle down into our people and ultimately we can change the world that way you see what I've realized is that the greatest leaders in the world sometimes don't have the answers the greatest leaders in the world ask great questions to lead their people
to the right answers let me remind you that the quality of your life comes down to the quality of the questions you ask yourself on a day-to-day basis the quality of your people comes down to the quality of the questions you ask yourself on a day-to-day basis and so what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to make us think I want to ask you a question my question for you is this if you look up at the screen to my fellow leaders are we putting our people in empowered environments that push them
to become solution oriented I'm going to show you what the outcome looks like when we create the eni the right environment for our people but are we putting our people in empowered environments that push them to become solution oriented my second question for you is this how can leaders work together to Foster environments that unlock human potential and ensure no one is Left Behind my fellow leaders the truth is I'm not supposed to be here the doctors told me that I never be independent I never drive a car I'll never dress myself I'll never feed
myself and I was able to defy all the odds because of the environment that my parents cultivated me at a very early age and as Leaders we have the opportunity to cultiv owered environments now I've been lucky to travel all over the world and I was in America one time and I was traveling on a plane it was a Southwest flight and I remember because I'm in a wheelchair I get to skip the line I got to focus on my strengths and I remember they rolled me into the plane and I sat in the first
row was the best it was the best seat in the plane I sat I sat towards the window and there was two other seats so other people can have the the best seats in the plane and I remember the flight attendant saying honey this is going to be a full flight I said no worries I already got my seat and the plane started filling in the plane started filling in and people are looking at me and then looking away or hey look at that guy and as the plane started to fill in no one wanted
to sit next to me and in that moment I started to feel Ina quate I started to feel like I didn't fit in I started to feel less than with a show of hands I'm just curious how many of you how many of you have ever felt those emotions before a show of hands and I'm looking out the window and I'm trying to be strong but I'm tearing up a little bit I said Nick what would you tell the leaders you teach you got to practice what you preach what would you tell them what's the
gift what's the mean what are you going to do with this and if you ask a great question you get a great answer and my brain said what's right with this what's the gift what's the learning and in that moment my brain gave me this answer my brain said Nick you can cry all the way home you can let this affect your day your week your month or Nick could celebrate the fact that he is the most legroom in this plane in the snap of a finger someone snap your fingers I'll pretend in the snap
of a finger I took a situation that was a loss and I turned into a win in the snap of a finger I took a situation that was negative and I turned it into a positive how with one of the greatest insights we can embody As Leaders is that when we change the meaning we change our life the meaning you attach to the experience becomes the experience my question to my fellow leaders is what meaning are we attaching to things are they disempowering or are they empowering but when you change the meaning you change your
life and when you change the meaning you can change your people's life so with this Insight with this psychology I want to show you what is truly possible with the right psychology and the right leadership can we please play the video [Music] [Applause] at the end of that video there was a picture of my mother and father in different parts of the world and the reason why I put that picture there is because with the work that I've been able to do with leaders just like you in their final chapters of life I'm now able
to be their arms and their legs I'll end with this I'm new to Dubai I actually moved here 4 months [Applause] ago so many people said Nick you travel all around the world why why did you choose Dubai why did you choose UAE and there's one specific story that stands out to the me me the most and I'd love to share it with you before I go I came here in May for nine days and by day three I said I'm selling everything and I'm coming here and I'm never going back and I was at
the beach one day and I needed to use the restroom and so I go to the restroom and before I go into the restroom I notice that there's three restrooms there was a male restroom there was a female restroom and then there was a restroom that labeled p o d and I didn't know what that meant and so I ran over to the worker I said sir what does this mean which bathroom do I use the male one or the p what is this and he looked at me and smiled he said sir the bathroom's
for you I said what do you mean I have my private bathroom he said sir here in UAE we don't use the word handicap we don't use the word disabled we use the term people of determination [Applause] and for the one of the moments in my life one of the most special moments in my life I felt seen I felt included I felt this this was the most inclusive place on the world and I will do everything in my power to make sure that I continue to bring empowered light and empowered eyeballs and to push
to make sure that this is the most inclusive accessible place in the entire world you see it was a true Testament to leadership because when you change the meaning you change your life when you change the meaning you change the experience when you change the meaning you change the stigma and I can assure you that Dubai and UAE is leading from the front of changing the meaning and changing people's lives and as Leaders we must lead from the front and success leaves Clues and so we can either look at it not do anything or we
can look at it pull great Insight from it implement it and change the world I'll leave you here with this the law of exposure States once you're exposed you can never be unexposed again once you see a greater way of serving a greater way of leading a greater way of contributing a greater way of scaling whatever it may be the moment you're exposed you can never be unexposed again and I can assure you there are Brilliant Minds in this room keep your high your your eyes open your heart open your soul open and I can
assure you that we can change the world together thank you so much
