Dang Nguyen

Transcript

dang the day that I have been dreading for so long finally came that akward father-son talk my seventeen-year-old comes home from school recently looking very distraught dad can we talk my mind raced school problems relationship problems a hidden teenage pregnancy yes son what is it dad why do we have to be so short is that it better be it I looked my son in the eyes and answer him only as his father could you inherited these handsome good looks and now you want to be tall too what's next a Lamborghini the biggest challenge that I have faced my entire life is that I am short

my journey with being vertically challenged began early on an elementary school remember when teachers used to make you line from shortest to tallest guess who was made fun of for always being at the front in middle school name the sport I was always picked last in high school named the girl I was never picked and after getting cut from the basketball team one year the coach said something to me that I'll never forget sorry dang but sure people don't make it to the top sure he might have been talking about basketball but that message stayed with me i internalized it and became part of my

identity I didn't make the basketball team because I'm short I'm not gonna get chosen because I'm short I'm not gonna be successful in this life cuz I'm short these were the type of toxic thoughts tormented me internally yes I was physically small but the self limiting belief made me feel even smaller but over time my perspective started to slowly shift I came across inspiring stories of many short men who were smart powerful and successful people who I could look up to metaphorically speaking of course Kevin Hart is five to Beethoven it was five three Gandhi five four Bruno Mars five five dan shake five six

I realized what was common in all of these men was not that they were short no but it's that these guys had the heart and courage to pursue greatness so I set out on a new journey to find something I could be great at something I could be proud of something that made me feel bigger than I am public speaking has always fascinated me but I never pursued it why would anybody want to hear what a short person has to say I'm not significant enough to be seen in her I don't take up enough space to command any attention you see I had to dig

deep to find the courage to conquer this voice in my head that kept telling me that I couldn't do it that I wasn't good enough and when I finally stepped onstage something amazing happened that not and my throat disappeared the butterflies in my stomach vanished and that voice in my head I also discovered that when I'm standing up on stage that I'm usually one of the tallest in the room know I discovered that I have a powerful voice that I can use to deliver the right messages to the people who need to hear them most and this is my message each and every one of

us have pains and struggles and challenges that we face but this is what makes us human this is what connects us to one another because in reality all of us are short in our own way some of us are short tempered with our kids some of us are short-sighted and too quick to judge others some of us are short time to spend with the people we love most when we need more of it this world is compassion so I have a proposal my vision of the future is one where instead of measuring a person by their height we measure them by how tall they make

us feel and this is the reason this is the reason I'm here my purpose in life is to inspire others to believe in themselves because for my entire life I have felt overlooked and I have felt unseen and I believe this is the reason my heart calls me to this stage so that I can be heard so hear me now to my son Brandon and to anyone else who needs to hear stop letting the things that you can't control define who you are because I may be short but standing on this stage of following my dreams I have already reached new heights thank

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Transcript

I dated a girl in high school her name was Emily and the first time I ever met her parents was to break the news to them that their 17-year old daughter would be giving birth in one week it was June of 1999 it was the first time I ever laid my eyes on her I was in the high school cafeteria and I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye and did a double-take so hard that I got an x-ray she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen I remember thinking to myself damn the guy who gets that girl it's

the luckiest guy in the world unfortunately I didn't even have the courage to say hi so I didn't see her for another year and a half that's when second semester started and guess who's in my social studies class I felt like I had won the random classmates lottery for six long months though I could only admire her from afar finally the semesters wrapping up and I realized my time was Now or Never so I slipped her a note asking for her phone number as I watched her scribble something back my heart was literally just beating right out of my chest but I could only think

of the worst case scenario leave me alone you creep stop staring at me in class instead written there in beautiful handwriting was her phone number I exchanged we exchanged many calls that lasted all night through to the early morning and with a little bit of magic we began dating and that was just the beginning of our journey together one year later Emily was eight months pregnant and not a single person knew it was her best kept secret but also the worst kind of half and we was small and were big sweaters to cover up the bump we were young naive and clueless teenagers we had

some of the toughest conversations of our lives during this period never in a million years that I ever imagined that we would be having a discussion about abortion but that's just something we couldn't do it didn't get any easier from there though because we made the very difficult decision to put our unborn son up for adoption we had several meetings with the local adoption agency meetings where we sifted through profiles of potential parents a couple of strangers would be reaping the rewards of our unplanned pregnancy they would be happy parents and we would not be parents a 19 a part of me felt light relieved

from the pressures and responsibilities but the other part of me felt very heavy I was weighed down by this deep sense of guilt shame and regret the day came for us to finally sign the adoption papers but before doing so we met Emily's doctor for her routine appointment and what the doctor said next would forever change the course of our future Emily your baby is too small you need to stay at the hospital until you give birth we were entangled in the web of lies we had woven and in an instance our lives came crashing down there is now no choice but to reveal our

year-long secrets it was time to tell her parents and they were not happy to say the least her mom is very traditional East Asian and wanted a dowry in exchange for her daughter she asked for two goats where was I supposed to find two goats ultimately with the love and support of her families we decided to keep her son we would be happy parents after all sometimes the universe conspires on our behalf which seems insurmountable in the moment may end up being one of life's greatest blessings I'm a testament to that 17 years ago I was scared and I doubted myself every single day because

I wasn't sure if I had what it took to be a good father and now I'm so proud to be standing on the stage to be able to share my story with my son who is in attendance tonight he has no idea how many times he's pulled me out of the darkest moments of my life with his love and his laughter I see a part of me and him and I'm incredibly proud of the man he's becoming better not be bringing home any baby just yet though as for my high school sweetheart there's simply no words for me to describe how much love I have

for her we've been together for almost 18 years now and have two more beautiful sons and even though she's the last person in the world who watch a horror movie with me she'll always be the first to laugh at my dad jokes definitely worth more than two goats I've often heard that in order to make a relationship work he needs to be 50/50 but I've learned that is absolutely not true because love is hard love is stupid love is messy love is blind love is painful but in spite of all this love is still so worth it love is when you give a hundred percent

and expect zero in return because if Emily and I hadn't given each other everything we had all these years those two young teenage parents would have never made it here tonight almost two decades ago remember what I said the guy who gets backers the luckiest man in the world who would have ever thought that it would be me thank you

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