During American basketball player and motivational speaker Kevin Laue’s car ride to Aragon, he listened to the song “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. “I love it,” he says. “I don’t drink coffee, so I got to get all hyped up. The guitar solo always works and gets me going.”
Laue, who was born with half his left arm missing, delivered a speech to students at Aragon on Monday, Sept. 12 to communicate the message of accepting and celebrating one’s imperfections as potential strengths.
“Having one arm is only really a disability if you make it a disability,” Laue says. “I think that it’s all psychological. … If you’re okay just embracing it, then you have no weaknesses. For me, the biggest challenge was to learn and accept that, because for the majority of my life, I did not like my arm. But as I did accept it and as I did embrace it, truly I was able to impact and inspire so many people to be successful like I’ve become. I’ve only been successful and happy because of that.”
“You matter. You’re significant. And you’re the future,” Laue told Aragon students during his speeches. “Whatever your nub is, you got to embrace it.”
Freshman Diego Villa-McGuffin liked Laue’s speech. Villa-McGuffin says, “I thought it was a really big and inspiring moment for everybody.”
Laue says, “I’ve seen the true impact on campuses after I’ve left, and that’s why I do this,” Laue says. “I wouldn’t speak to high schools unless I really felt I was leaving a trail behind, to change perspectives, to create real leaders, and to make real change on campus and beyond. If you have the courage to stand up and actually act upon and apply what I’ve given you today, then you literally can adapt and be successful in literally anything you do in life. Not only that, you can also lead others to do the same, which is even more important.”
Like Villa-McGuffin, senior Ryota Nozawa was also motivated by Laue’s speech. Nozawa says, “Before, I took it as a joke, but then it was pretty serious and very inspirational. I learned that even if you’re at your lowest, people around you will help you. You have to work hard, and everyone has the potential to become somebody.”
Leadership invited Laue to speak at Aragon. Leadership advisor Melissa Perino says, “Once, at Leadership camp, when we decided that our theme was going to be about embracing who you are and taking what people might see as your weakness and turning it into a strength, it made me think back to a [time in March when] I had heard Kevin Laue speak and so he seemed like the perfect speaker to bring to school to represent that idea.”
Perino elaborates, “All the activity directors in the state of California get together in the spring for a week long conference, and Kevin Laue was one of the speakers there who I heard. There were many, but he was the one who best embodied what our student leaders wanted to be the theme and focus of the year.”
