Nick Vujicic — Life Without Limbs, Motivational Speaker, Author of Life Without Limits | Self Growth Videos

Nicholas James Vujicic was born December 4, 1982 in Melbourne, Australia, to Serbian immigrant parents Boris and Dushka Vujicic. He was born with phocomelia, specifically the tetra-amelia variant — the near-total congenital absence of all four limbs. His parents, both active in their church community, were not told of the condition before his birth and described the hours after as a profound crisis of faith. They kept him, raised him, and made one early decision that would shape the rest of his life: he would attend mainstream schools rather than specialist schools for children with disabilities.

Vujicic’s childhood was hard. He has written extensively about the bullying he endured, the sense of being a burden to his family, and the severe depression that led him — at age ten — to try to drown himself in his family’s bathtub. He has described the internal turning point as a conversation with his mother that planted an idea: if his life had been allowed to begin with this condition, then perhaps the condition had a purpose he hadn’t yet found. He did not attempt suicide again, though the depression continued for years.

He completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Griffith University in Australia, majoring in financial planning and accounting. While still in school he began to speak publicly — first at his school, then at church groups, then at regional conferences. By his early twenties the speaking work had become his calling. In 2005 he founded Life Without Limbs, a nonprofit dedicated to global motivational and evangelical outreach. He emigrated to the United States and settled in California.

Over the next twenty years Vujicic has spoken in over 70 countries. He has been in meetings with more than a dozen national presidents and prime ministers. He has delivered messages inside prisons from Colombia to Asia, inside mega-church pulpits, at corporate events for Amway, Nu Skin, and others, and at schools across six continents. His books Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life (2010), Unstoppable: The Incredible Power of Faith in Action (2012), and Love Without Limits: A Remarkable Story of True Love Conquering All (2014, co-authored with his wife Kanae) have been translated into dozens of languages.

Vujicic married Kanae Miyahara in 2012. They have four children, conceived and born without any limb-absence condition. The family currently lives in Texas, where Vujicic continues running Life Without Limbs and related evangelical and humanitarian organizations.

His central teaching, compressed: the circumstances of your life are not the measure of your life. You do not need arms or legs, money or applause, or anyone else’s permission to live a life of purpose — you only need to be willing to receive the life you’ve been given, and to ask what it might be for. Most people who seem to have everything still feel they have nothing, and most people who seem to have nothing are the ones most able to find what actually matters. Do not let a bad day become a bad life.