Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Dare to Be Kind
WORK NOTES: with Catherine Avril Morris
PSEUDONYM(S): Velasquez, Elizabeth Ann
BIRTHDATE: 3/13/1989
WEBSITE: http://imwithlizzie.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Vel%C3%A1squez
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 13, 1989, in Austin, TX; daughter of Rita and Guadalupe Velasquez.
EDUCATION:Attended Texas State University, ending 2012.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and motivational speaker. Star of A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story, Lifetime TV, 2016; star of the Unzipped series, Fullscreen, 2017.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Lizzie Velasquez suffers from a rare neonatal progeroid syndrome that prevents her from gaining weight (she weighs around sixty-three pounds), speeds aging, and has led to blindness in her right eye. Because of her condition, Velasquez has suffered from severe bullying all her life, and she even found a YouTube posting describing her as “The Ugliest Woman in the World.” Rather than let these experiences defeat her Velasquez has used them to become a motivational speaker and author. Her TedX talk has received over ten million views, and she is the star of A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story.
Velasquez credits her resilience to her family, her Catholic faith, and her Latin heritage, and she told online Heavy correspondent Daniel S. Levine: “Growing up Hispanic has made me the person I am today, without a doubt. The biggest thing I’ve learned from my culture is the support of the ones that you love.” Velasquez went on to comment: “Growing up with that was huge for me because when I would go on holidays and just be with all of my cousins and my aunts and my uncles and everything, they just made me feel like Lizzie . . . They never treated me differently. They never did anything special for me. They treated me like everyone else, and having that foundation and having that support on both sides of my family, was huge.”
As a motivational speaker and writer, Velasquez stresses the importance of kindness and compassion, even to the very people who would bully her. In her book Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World, Velasquez not only comments on her own experience of bullying, but also on how to address this harassment by creating a “culture of kindness.” The author admits the difficulty of practicing kindness in the face of cruelty, but she also notes that facing personal problems head-on builds character. Thus, facing bullying and responding with kindness not only works to solve the problems of bullying, it also helps to build everyone up.
Praising the volume in Publishers Weekly, a critic called it “a heartfelt and powerful treatise about the importance of being kind.” The critic also found that “readers will be inspired by Velasquez’s resilient spirit.” Stacy Shaw, writing in Booklist, was also impressed, and she declared the book is “full of [the] vitality that captures the luminous spirit of kindness that Velasquez so beautifully embodies.” As Jennifer Haupt put it in her online Spirituality & Health assessment, the book is “rallying cry for any child going through the hell of being bullied or just trying to figure out where they fit into the world.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Velasquez, Lizzie, and Rita Velasquez, Lizzie Beautiful, 2010.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2017, Stacy Shaw, review of Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World.
Publishers Weekly, January 23, 2017, review of Dare to Be Kind.
ONLINE
Heavy, http://heavy.com/ (October 25, 2017), Daniel S. Levine, author interview.
I’m with Lizzie Website, http://imwithlizzie.com (October 25, 2017).
Leaf Chronicle, http://www.theleafchronicle.com/ (March 6, 2015 ), review of Choosing Happiness.
Spirituality & Health, https://spiritualityhealth.com/ (September 26, 2017) Jennifer Haupt, review of Dare to Be Kind.
Lizzie Velásquez
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Lizzie Velásquez
Born
Elizabeth Ann Velásquez
March 13, 1989 (age 28)
Austin, Texas, U.S.
Nationality
American
Other names
Lizzie Velásquez
Alma mater
Texas State University
Occupation
Motivational speaker
First spoke with Barbizon modeling acting agency in 2014
Known for
Public speaking, anti-bullying activism, public appearances, and book authorship
Parent(s)
Rita Velásquez
Guadalupe Velásquez
Elizabeth Ann "Lizzie" Velásquez (/ˈlɪzi vəˈlæskɛz/; born March 13, 1989) is an American motivational speaker, author, and YouTuber. She was born with an extremely rare congenital disease called Marfanoid–progeroid–lipodystrophy syndrome that, among other symptoms, prevents her from accumulating body fat and gaining weight. Her conditions resulted in bullying during her childhood and ultimately inspired her to take up motivational speaking.
Contents [hide]
1
Early life
2
Condition
3
Career
4
See also
5
References
6
External links
Early life[edit]
The eldest of three children born to Rita and Guadalupe Velásquez,[1] Lizzie was born on March 13, 1989, in Austin, Texas.[2] Born four weeks prematurely, her birth weight was only 1.219 kilograms (2 pounds, 11 ounces).[3][4]
Velásquez studied at Texas State University[3] until late 2012, majoring in communication studies.[5] She is a Roman Catholic and has said of her faith, "It's been my rock through everything, just having the time to be alone and pray and talk to God and know that He's there for me."[6][7][8]
Condition[edit]
Velásquez's condition is a very rare, previously undiagnosed and non-terminal genetic disorder.[9] Her condition bears similarities to many other conditions, especially progeria. Medical researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center previously speculated that it may be a form of neonatal progeroid syndrome (NPS) (Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome), which does not affect Velásquez's healthy bones, organs, and teeth.[10]
Velásquez is medically unable to gain weight, which is a hallmark of her rare disorder.[11] She has never weighed more than 29 kg (64 lbs), and reportedly has almost 0% body fat.[12][13] Moreover, she is required to eat many small meals and snacks throughout the day, averaging between 5,000 to 8,000 calories daily.[12][13] Additionally, she is blind in her right eye, which began to cloud over when she was 4,[14] and she is vision-impaired in her left eye.[15]
Around 2015, it was elucidated that Lizzie Velasquez and another woman named Abby Solomon with a similar but less severe variant of the condition have mutations in the FBN1 gene, which encodes the proprotein of the novel hormone asprosin, and that this mutation results in asprosin deficiency and is responsible for their conditions.[16][17] The condition is specifically called Marfanoid–progeroid–lipodystrophy syndrome or simply Marfan lipodystrophy syndrome.[18][19]
Career[edit]
Ever since she was dubbed the "World's Ugliest Woman" in a video posted on YouTube in 2006, when she was 17, Velásquez has spoken out against bullying. In January 2014 she gave a TEDxAustinWomen Talk titled "How Do YOU Define Yourself"[20] and her YouTube videos have received over 54 million views.[21] She is known for her optimism.[4][14][22][23][24] For National Bullying Prevention Month in 2015, she hosted a social media challenge for Bystander Revolution's Month of Action.[25]
Her first work, co-authored with her mother, Rita, is a self-published autobiography published in 2010 in English and Spanish.[citation needed] It is called Lizzie Beautiful: The Lizzie Velásquez Story and includes letters Velásquez's mother wrote to her as a child.
Velásquez has also written two books directed at teenagers, which share personal stories and offer advice. Be Beautiful, Be You (2012) shares her journey "to discover what truly makes us beautiful, and teaches readers to recognize their unique gifts and blessings".[22] The book is also available in Spanish as Sé bella, sé tú misma (2013).[23] Another book, Choosing Happiness (2014), talks about some of the obstacles Velásquez has faced and how she "learned the importance of choosing to be happy when it's all too easy to give up".[24] Both books were published by a Redemptorist publishing house, Liguori Publications.
A documentary film titled A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velásquez Story premiered at SXSW on March 14, 2015.[26] The movie aired on Lifetime on October 17, 2016.
Velasquez began starring on her own Fullscreen original series titled Unzipped since April 2017.
Lizzie Velasquez: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
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By Daniel S. Levine
Updated Oct 17, 2016 at 7:53pm
Published Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00pm
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Lizzie Valesquez in 2015. (Getty)
Lizzie Velasquez is the subject of the new Lifetime documentary, A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story. Made in 2015, the film debuted at the 2015 South By Southwest film festival in Velasquez’s hometown Austin, Texas. It debuts on Lifetime at 8 p.m. on October 17.
When she was a teenager, the 27-year-old Velasquez saw a YouTube video that called her the “World’s Ugliest Woman.” Rather than retreat from public view, she decided to become a motivational speaker and anti-bullying advocate. Valesquez was diagnosed with the incredibly rare neonatal progeroid syndrome and is one of only three known cases in the world. She cannot gain weight and also suffers from early ageing and blindness in her right eye.
In an interview with Heavy.com, A Brave Heart director Sara Hirsh Bordo called Velasquez one of the “few unifying heroes” that audiences can rally around as a “champion to inspire and give a sense of hope.”
Here is a look at her life and career.
1. Velasquez Weighs Just 63 Pounds & Was Born Weighing Just 3 Pounds
The Texas State University graduate weighs just 63 pounds. She was born prematurely, via an emergency C-section and weighed less than three pounds at birth. Although she eats regularly, her condition makes it impossible for her to gain weight. She revealed in 2012 that she eats up to 60 small meals a day.
“My stomach is so small that I can’t eat that much,” Velasquez told ABC News in 2012. “So about 30 minutes after eating I’m ready to eat again. I snack a lot just to keep my energy up.”
Despite her frail frame and blindness in her right eye, she is healthy and told ABC in 2012 that she wouldn’t be interested in a miracle cure.
“I realized I don’t really want a cure for this syndrome,” she said. “If a doctor found a magic pill or some surgery that would help me gain weight, I wouldn’t want it. All the struggles I’ve had made me who I am today.”
Dr. Atul Chopra at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston explained to ABC in 2012 that Velasquez doesn’t have any adipose tissue, which is what the body needs to store fat.
Read More From Heavy
Michel’le Toussaint: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
2. Velasquez Turned Her Bullying Experiences Into a Positive by Speaking Out
Although Velasquez dealt with bullying throughout school, it was seeing a YouTube video in 2006 that called her the “World’s Ugliest Woman” and the comments that went with it, that changed her life. At first, she wasn’t sure how to react.
“It made me feel awful, I think if anyone were to put themselves in my shoes the moment I found that video, and reading all the comments, I think you’d instantly knew how I felt. It was horrible, I was upset, I was angry, and I didn’t know how I was going to pick myself back up from it,” she told Australia’s Sunrise program in September.
However, she decided that the best way to overcome bullying was to speak out. This decision eventually lead to her famous TEDxAustinWomen talk in December 2013. Her 13-minute talk became a sensation and is now has over 10.7 million views. You can see her talk above.
Read More From Heavy
‘A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story’: When Does Lifetime’s New Documentary Debut?
3. She Believes Her Hispanic Heritage has played a Major Role in Her Response to Bullying
Back in March, Velasquez picked up the Latinovator award at the Hispanicize event in Miami. Before that event, she told the Huffington Post that being Hispanic has played an important role in who she is.
“Growing up Hispanic has made me the person I am today, without a doubt. The biggest thing I’ve learned from my culture is the support of the ones that you love,” she said.
She grew up with a large Mexican-American family, who all helped her rise above bullying.
“Growing up with that was huge for me because when I would go on holidays and just be with all of my cousins and my aunts and my uncles and everything, they just made me feel like Lizzie,” Valesquez told the Huffington Post. “They never treated me differently. They never did anything special for me. They treated me like everyone else, and having that foundation and having that support on both sides of my family, was huge.”
Velasquez was raised Catholic and told Premier Christianity that her faith has also played an important role.
“I was born and raised in the Catholic faith and my parents have always been very involved in church and volunteering,” she said. “It was always my dad’s way of wanting to say to God, ‘We will be as close as we can with you, volunteer and do what we can, as long as you help keep Lizzie healthy.’ And so we did that our whole lives.”
4. Velasquez Turned Motivational Speaking Into a Career & Knows There’s Still Work to be Done to Stop Bullying
Velasquez has surprisingly become an entrepreneur in the years since she gained media attention. She has written three books and figured out how to monetize her skill as a motivational speaker.
“I didn’t really ever think of myself as an entrepreneur,” she told Forbes in 2015. “First and foremost, I had to flip the hurt and negativity of social media and turn it into something positive, to hopefully help others who have suffered from severe bullying to not let it get them down. I didn’t realize I was an entrepreneur until I was a speaker at a Malaysia conference for entrepreneurs.”
Velasquez has also learned how to turn social media into a positive after starting out with a negative experience. “Through my wide net of social followers, I continue to have a high demand for my books and it has opened countless speaking opportunities,” she told Forbes.
Velasquez has target=”_blank”>over 720,000 YouTube subscribers, 618,000 followers on Instagram and 58,300 followers on Twitter.
5. ‘A Brave Heart’ Won the Audience Award at SXSW & Was Directed by First-Timer Sara Hirsch Bordo
A Brave Heart won acclaim after its debut at SXSW 2015 and even picked up the Audience Award. The film was directed by Sarah Hirsch Bordo, who produced TEDxAustinWomen. Velasquez told Fortune that she approached Bordo and they decided to work together on the film. When asked about her reaction to seeing it for the first time, Velasquez said, “I was speechless, crying, humbled and excited. It’s my biggest dream come true—that I never knew I had.”
When Fortune asked Velasquez what her advise is to those bullied at the workplase, she suggested:
Find a safe place to talk, and express how you feel. Maybe say something like, “I’m not used to having people speak down to me. How can we work together to find a way to address this?”
But her most powerful piece of advice might be that you are in control of your own life. As she told Fortune:
Throughout the world, there are many people who are worse off than I am. You have to use the negativity in your life to change things. I used to just smile and brush my problems under the rug. But over time, that bubbles up and comes out. You are the biggest influencer in your life. You have to be strong for yourself first. You are the one who defines who you are.
Bordo had never made a film before completing A Brave Heart. She told Heavy.com that Velasquez and her family had been approached before abotu a film or documentary, but they decided that Bordo was the “right fit” for the project as a “surrogate Velasquez.”
09/13/2012 11:30 am ET Updated Sep 14, 2012
Lizzie Velasquez, Born Without Adipose Tissue: ‘Maybe You Should Stop Staring And Start Learning’
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Twenty-three-year-old Lizzie Velasquez was born without any adipose tissue — meaning she has no fat on her body.
As a result, she weighs just 58 pounds, even though she eats as many as 60 times a day, the Daily Mail reported. she has been the subject of cyberbullying and stares when she walks out in public, she recently revealed to Dr. Drew Pinsky on HLN.
Some cyberbullies even dubbed her the “ugliest woman in the world,” because of her appearance due to her medical condition, she said.
“It’s not easy, I will be the first to tell you it’s not easy,” Velasquez told Dr. Drew. “I may have this outer exterior of people saying, ‘She can handle everything, she’s dealt with this for so long,’ and to be honest, I’m human and of course these things are going to hurt.”
Back in 2010, The Telegraph reported that Velasquez consumes 5,000 to 8,000 calories a day — eating food every 15 minutes. But because of the condition, the Texas State University in San Marcos student has never weighed much more than 60 pounds, she wrote in the description of her book that came out earlier this year, titled “Be Beautiful, Be You.”
Velasquez’s condition is extremely rare; she is just one of three people in the entire world to have it, she noted in her book description.
The Telegraph reported that doctors believe she may have something called Neonatal Progeroid Syndrome. It is a condition that leads to premature aging, but is different from the more common aging disorder, progeria, according to the National Institutes of Health. It is characterized by wrinkled skin, not much fat, a large head, a face that looks aged and visible veins in the scalp.
“I think the biggest things I have to deal with is constantly people staring at me as soon as I walk into a room,” Velasquez told Dr. Drew. “Recently, it’s been a lot of adults I’ve been having to deal with who will slowly walk in front of me and turn their heads, and look me up and down. So the stares are what I’m really dealing with in public right now.”
But “instead of just sitting by and watching these people judge me, I’m starting to want to go up to these people and introduce myself, or give them my card, and say, ‘Maybe you should stop staring and start learning.’”
Lizzie Velasquez on beating back bullies after being called 'world's ugliest woman'
Oct. 17, 2016 at 11:18 PM
Alexandra Zaslow
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When Lizzie Velasquez came across a hurtful YouTube video at age 17 that mocked her as "The World's Ugliest Woman," she was convinced the world was just a mean and hurtful place.
But in the 10 years since, she's used the hate to motivate millions of others to beat back the bullies.
She's become a sought-after motivational speaker, has her own YouTube channel, is writing her fourth book, and is featured in a Lifetime documentary premiering Monday titled "A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story."
WireImage
Lizzie Velasquez discussed "A Brave Heart:: The Lizzie Velasquez Story" at AOL Studios in September 2015.
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Velasquez, 27, who has neonatal progeroid syndrome — a rare genetic disease that affects her heart, eyes and bones, and prevents her from gaining weight — was at first devastated by the video.
A year later, she gave her first motivational speech when the assistant principal at her Austin, Texas, high school asked her to tell her story to 400 ninth-grade students.
RELATED: Meet woman who can’t gain weight: At 21, she’s 60 pounds
At first, Velasquez worried no one would be able to relate to her, but it quickly became clear to her onstage that her story resonated with the other teens.
Courtesy of Emily Duncan
Velasquez shared what standing up to bullying means to her with "I Am That Girl" author Alexis Jones.
"When I started speaking, I realized I could connect with every single person because we all know what it's like to be bullied and to feel insecure," Velasquez told TODAY. "In that moment, I had never felt so confident in my own skin."
Velasquez went on to deliver a TED talk, where nearly 11 million viewers tuned in to hear her story. There's been no looking back for this anti-bullying warrior.
"Gaining fame has definitely come with amazing opportunities, but there's also a new sense of responsibility," said Velasquez. "I feel the need to live up to the inspirational standard I'm setting for myself."
Velasquez has taken on her newest role as an anti-bullying activist.
RELATED: Lizzie Velasquez: 'Ugliest woman' video changed my life for the better
She hopes that through her efforts, girls everywhere will not feel so alone, which is why she's teamed up with Secret this October in honor of National Bully Prevention Month. All month long, the deodorant brand has been inviting women and girls to share an anti-bullying pledge on social media using the hashtag #StandUpWithSecret.
Courtesy of Lizzie Velasquez
Velasquez used Secret's custom Snapchat filter, which gave girls on high school and college campuses the opportunity to show what standing up to bullying means to them.
"I feel like I'm walking on cloud nine every day now," Velasquez said. "To be able to connect with people around the world who are touched by my story and now feel confident to stand up for themselves makes me feel like I'm living out my purpose."
"I was able to get on the other side of bullying and if I was able to do that, then you can absolutely get there as well."
Posted on 31st October 2016 by Amber Karlins
Biography: Lizzie Velasquez – Motivational Speaker
Skip to entry content
No matter how confident or progressive or empowered we may be, we all know the feeling that comes with believing that some part of our appearance isn’t good enough; the stinging pain that comes with being told that some aspect of our physical appearance is unappealing. After all, we live in a world where aspirations for women to meet conventional beauty standards are relentless, toxic and extreme.
When Lizzie Velasquez was told she was the ugliest woman in the world, she didn’t let people’s cruelty crush her — instead, she used their words to empower her to help others. She’s now an internationally sought-after motivational speaker, inspiring people all over the world to rise above bullying and to treat themselves, and others, with kindness.
I am human… of course those things are going to hurt… (but) I’m not going to let those things define me.
Lizzie was born in 1989, 4 weeks premature. She was diagnosed with an extremely rare condition that made it impossible for her to develop muscle or body fat. The condition itself is so rare that it doesn’t even have a name, and it’s believed to only affect 2 other people in the world. Initially, doctors didn’t believe Lizzie would have a fulfilling life – there were even concerns she might not survive. They had no idea how she’d been born alive, and they couldn’t imagine her ever being able to walk, or talk. Lizzie, however, has always been one to defy expectations, and although she was incredibly small, Lizzie’s brain, internal organs and bones developed normally.
Lizzie describes her condition as “one big mystery.” At 4 years old, she went blind in her right eye, for reasons doctors still don’t understand. That eye clouded over and changed colour, so she now has one brown eye and one blue eye. She also has facial features most commonly associated with progeria, including a small mouth, pointed nose, and aged skin – although her disorder differs from progeria in that doctors now don’t believe it will be terminal. While they didn’t understand her condition, Lizzie and her family became very proficient at dealing with it.
However, when Lizzie was 17 years old, she did an interview for a local tv station. When the video clip was posted on YouTube, it was labelled “The World’s Ugliest Woman.” When Lizzie found the clip, it had already received 4 million views and was accompanied by a plethora of appalling comments.
Lizzie was heartbroken. She had already spent most of her life being bullied, but in this moment, she felt truly overwhelming pain. Fortunately Lizzie’s parents had a different take on it and reportedly said to her “You can have your one good cry and let it out, but then you have to pick your head up and move on to something positive.”
Thankfully for all of us, that’s exactly what Lizzie did.
Now I actually look at my condition as a gift… it’s something that I’m blessed to have and I want to share this gift with anyone who will have it.
Since then, Lizzie has devoted her life to speaking out against cyber-bullying and negative body image. Her Ted Talk on true beauty has been watched more than 7 million times, and she has become an internationally sought-after motivational speaker. She’s also written 3 inspirational books, and The Lizzie Project, a film inspired by her life, was funded through an incredibly successful Kickstarter project, which reached its $180,000 fundraising goal in less than a month. Hers is a considerable contribution to a world much in need of reformed attitudes to these issues, and although we still have a long way to go to fulfill Lizzie’s mission of eliminating cyber-bullying entirely, there’s no question that the world is a kinder – and more beautiful – place because Lizzie is in it.
Lizzie Velasquez is a motivational speaker and had over a half a million subscribers on her YouTube channel and the executive producer of a documentary based on her life, A Brave Heart.
Lizzie Velasquez chooses happiness, fights bullying
lifestyle By Nicole Villalpando - American-Statesman Staff
0
Posted: 12:00 a.m. Saturday, July 26, 2014
On Dec. 5, Lizzie Velasquez, speaking to an Austin Music Hall full of women, girls and the men who love them asked a simple question: “What defines you?”
Her 13-minute speech at the close of TEDxAustinWomen invited her audience to consider using the negativity in their lives to make their lives better, just as the now 25-year-old Austinite has done. As a teenager, she was the unwitting subject of a short YouTube video with the label “The World’s Ugliest Woman.”
A few weeks after TEDx, the video of her talk had reached more than a million views on YouTube. Six weeks in, it had reached 5 million. Now, it has more than 10 million views in the English and Spanish versions.
She has been on “The View,” “The Today Show” and “The Katie Couric Show.” She has written her third book, “Choosing Happiness,” which comes out Friday, and she’s in the middle of filming a documentary about her life and her anti-bullying campaign.
Velasquez used to answer her own question — what defines you? — with three words: neonatal progeroid syndrome. That’s the syndrome doctors believe she has. It causes her to not be able to gain weight. At 5-foot 2-inches, she’s never weighed more than 64 pounds. She’s also blind in one eye.
Today she defines herself as a woman who has accomplished her goals: motivational speaker, author, college graduate.
It has been a long road for Velasquez to be able to define herself that way. And it’s a road on which she wants to help others in their journeys.
Growing up normal
When Velasquez was born eight weeks early, her father, Lupe, an elementary school principal, and mother, Rita, a church secretary, were told to prepare for Lizzie to be small. It was their first baby. Chris, 16, and Marina, 19, would come later.
As Velasquez describes in her TEDx talk, doctors later told her parents she wouldn’t walk or crawl or think or do anything by herself. Her parents, she says, responded: “We want to see her and we’re going to take her home and love her and raise her to the best of our abilities.”
People would stare at Lizzie all the time and were always walking up to her parents to ask them why their daughter was so small.
Rita Velasquez says, “We never tried to shelter her. We wanted her to live a normal life just like everyone else.”
Sara Bordo, the producer of TEDxAustinWomen and the director of the documentary that’s being made about Velasquez, says all you have to do is spend 90 seconds with the Velasquez clan to know they are doing something really right.
“She could not be who she is without being in that family,” Bordo says.
The Velasquezes continue to keep her “normal,” to keep her being Lizzie. On the day she was asked to go on “The View” as one of Barbara Walters’ last guests, her parents were excited for her, but her mom asked, “Have you cleaned the kitchen yet? If not, then clean the kitchen and then you can answer them,” Velasquez says.
Velasquez grew up surrounded by “normal” kids in the day care center her mother ran at the time. She didn’t know she was anything but “normal” until the first day of kindergarten. That’s the first time she really noticed a kid staring at her and not wanting to play with her. The girl and others like her were afraid.
“When I started school, it was a big reality check,” she says.
In her TEDx talk, Velasquez says, “My first reaction is, ‘She is really rude. I am a fun kid and she is the one missing out.’”
Making friends was hard, but by second grade, Rita Velasquez says, it was easier for Lizzie. She made friends and they stuck up for her whenever someone who didn’t know her would make fun of her.
Finding the humor
Like many teenagers, the middle school years were tough for Velasquez. She often wished she could “scrub the syndrome off.” She saw her sister growing up without the syndrome and yearned for that life.
She didn’t feel good about herself and that made the insults that were lobbed her way hurt even more.
“The bullying I went through, yes, it was specific to me,” she says. “But I didn’t realize so many people were being bullied. While I was in school, I thought it was only happening to me.”
She was lucky to be surrounded by good friends and teachers who were there for her. “As cliche as it is, it really does get better,” she says.
Her parents always encouraged her to not focus on what was wrong but what was right. They were always good about “not letting me sink into a dark hole, because it could have been very easy,” she says.
They and her extended family also gave her a sense of humor. Her mom has nine siblings, her father has four. “The sense of humor was not intended to toughen her up,” Rita Velasquez says, “It is mostly about making the best of challenging situations.”
So, in her TEDx talk, Velasquez explained, “Basically what this syndrome causes is that I cannot gain weight. Yes, it does sound as good as it is.” And then she talks about the benefits of the syndrome. She can eat as many Twinkies, doughnuts, chips, Skittles or scoops of cookie dough ice cream, her current favorite, as she wants. She also jokes about being blind in one eye: “I wear contacts … contact. Half-off contact. When I wear my reading glasses, half-off prescription. If somebody is annoying me, being rude, stand on my right side. It’s like you’re not even there.”
Beneath the humor is a genuine desire to help people. “When she was little, she told us when she grew up, she wanted to do something in life so she could help other people,” Rita Velasquez says. “She thought about it and then said, ‘I think I will be a waitress.’”
Her chosen profession, a motivational speaker, began when she was an office aide at Crockett High School. An assistant principal asked her as a sophomore to talk to 400 freshmen about her story and the bullying she had experienced. “I didn’t know it was a career,” she says. “I didn’t know you could be able to call that your job. I thought she was crazy.”
Velasquez agreed to speak and asked her friends to be there to support her. They came with posters. “Why in the world did I agree to do it?” she asked herself. She wrote her speech, but then put down the paper and just talked from her heart.
“Being just Lizzie was enough,” Velasquez writes in “Choosing Happiness” about that time.
The first viral YouTube video
Velasquez was 17 when she saw it. It was an eight-second video of herself walking. It was part of a TV news story on her from when she was 11. The title over the video that was posted on YouTube was “The World’s Ugliest Woman.” Already 4 million people had seen it and there were thousands of hateful comments including, as she tells the TEDx audience, “Lizzie, please, just do the world a favor, put a gun to your head and kill yourself.”
She didn’t know how long it had been up, but she had been told by people at her school before she saw it that they had seen her video. She had no idea what they were talking about.
When she saw it, she didn’t try to respond back to the comments. She put it away and hoped her parents wouldn’t see it.
Velasquez told her TEDx audience about that time: “I’m just going to leave it alone. I just started realizing that my life is in my hands. I could either choose to make this really good or I could choose to make this really bad.”
Her parents eventually saw the video. “As parents, we were hurt, not so much for us, but for Lizzie,” Rita Velasquez says.
They didn’t know what to do about the video. YouTube was new and it took a long time before it was eventually pulled from the site.
Her parents encourage her to forgive the person who posted it. Even now, when there are negative comments, they tell her to take the high road. “We ask her to please not focus on the bad,” Rita Velasquez says. “We remind her that whenever she is reading comments and sees that something is negative, to try her best to avoid it.”
That quality of not engaging in the nastiness is something Alexis Jones, founder of I Am That Girl, producer of TEDxAustinWomen and now the producer of the documentary, says she finds remarkable about Velasquez. “You’re an actual angel,” Jones says.
In the intro to “Choosing Happiness,” Jones writes: “That is what Lizzie is here to teach us, to not let others, the world or even ourselves, label us in ways that don’t serve us, in ways that limit us.”
Finding her passion
The “Ugly” video fueled Velasquez.
“I finally realized I was more than my syndrome,” she writes in “Choosing Happiness.” “I was going to take the worse experience of my life and find a way to make it a positive. I would fight back with my accomplishments.”
She graduated high school and went to Texas State University in San Marcos. She began speaking to kids about bullying whenever she could. She made friends in college and adjusted to new-found independence. She set goals: To be a motivational speaker, to write a book, to graduate college, to be in control of her own career and to start a family. All but the last one has happened.
She and her mother wrote her first book, “Lizzie Beautiful, The Lizzie Velasquez Story,” which came out in 2010. She followed it up with “Be Beautiful, Be You,” which came out in 2012. She graduated college in December.
She has a new book, “Choosing Happiness.” It’s a continuation of “Be Beautiful, Be You,” but written for a slightly older audience. “Choosing Happiness” talks about finding your passion, being independent, recharging yourself and deciding who you want to be. It’s a book designed to help you brainstorm about your life and write down your ideas. It also tackles bullying and self-worth, subjects that are Velasquez’s passion.
In September, she’s heading to Washington, D.C., to try to get the Safe Schools Improvement Act passed. “This is something that really needs to be passed,” she says.
In “Choosing Happiness,” she encourages her readers to fight bullying with positive messages. “One negative comment can be enough to push someone over the edge, but one positive comment can be enough to pull that person back,” she writes.
She’s looking forward to the trip because of the importance of the legislation — and also as a lover of Netflix. “If it’s anything like ‘House of Cards’ or ‘Scandal’ I don’t know what I’ll do,” she jokes.
The second viral video
Before the TEDx video went viral, Velasquez was thinking of slowing down a bit in 2014 and maybe not doing as much social media. Once it went viral, instead of being able to answer all her own emails, she needed a team of people to help her. “I can’t do this,” she says she thought. “This is so much. I felt bad because I couldn’t respond in a timely manner.”
Her team is now the women behind TEDxAustinWomen. As the video’s clicks were growing, Bordo knew she was meant to tell Velasquez’s story in a documentary. “Bullying has few heroes,” Bordo says. “People need a light in this space rather than constantly being served in the dark.”
The film will be about Velasquez’s story, but it’s also meant to show that bullying is really everyone’s story. The goal, Bordo says, is for people to say, “I didn’t think I had anything in common with her. I thought she was brave. Now I know I have so much in common with her and I hope I can be as brave as her.”
The project has pulled together Bordo, an Austin High graduate, Jones, a Westlake High graduate and Velasquez, a Crockett High graduate. In May, through Kickstarter, they made their $180,000 goal with 3,564 backers giving a total of $214,930. It’s enough to get through the filming and start post-production, but not enough to finish the film. Bordo is looking for additional backers.
Their hope is to finish it by November to get it entered into consideration for the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and the South by Southwest Film Festival here.
What Bordo wants people to see is how extremely intelligent Velasquez is, not just her sense of humor. “Just because someone shares her feelings all the time doesn’t mean there isn’t a very tall IQ to back it up,” Bordo says.
With filming, promoting the book and speaking about bullying, Velasquez has a full schedule. Her friends and family protect her from herself and build in days off the road.
Her syndrome causes her to be susceptible to diseases and sometimes it takes awhile to bounce back. Her daily regimen is eating small meals throughout the day and taking a multivitamin. She says she does not have any knowledge that the syndrome will affect her life expectancy.
Whenever she needs to travel, she sees her primary doctor before to make sure it’s safe. They form a game plan and she finds ways to make the travel easier, like using a wheelchair in the airport.
Even though Velasquez tells her readers and audience to be positive even in the darkest times, it’s sometimes not easy to take her own advice. When that happens, she watches the TEDx video to remind herself of how strong she is.
“She gets low and sad and vulnerable, just like everybody else,” Bordo says. “But she’s so resilient. She pops up even faster.”
When Velasquez does get low, she reminds herself that “just being Lizzie is enough,” as she told herself when she first spoke to 400 freshmen at her high school.
“I have gone from a girl who wanted to scrub away her skin to one who is so confident in who she is, I’m inspiring other people to love themselves for who they are,” she writes in “Choosing Happiness.”
She urges her the audience in her TEDx video: “My life was put into my hands just like your lives are put into yours. … You are the ones that decide what defines you.”
“Choosing Happiness”
Lizzie Velasquez
$15.99, Liguori Publications
Find a link to Lizzie Velasquez’s TEDxAustinWomen talk with this story online at statesman.com/life.
No bio
Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World
Stacy Shaw
113.17 (May 1, 2017): p42.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World. By Lizzie Velasquez and Catherine Avril Morris. June 2017. 224p. Hachette, $22 (9780316272438); e-book, $12.99 (9780316272452). 177.
Velasquez knows about bullying. At age 17 she was surfing YouTube when she came across a video called "World's Ugliest Woman," consisting of a single photo--of her. She was born with a very rare syndrome that, among other things, prevents her from gaining weight and causes her to look "different." Though she could have allowed the video to define her, Velasquez went on to become an influential motivational speaker and antibullying activist. Though at first hers might sound like just another self-help book, Velasquez, with coauthor Morris, accomplishes much more than that. Probing her own fears and feelings of inadequacy as well as opening up about her struggles with depression, anxiety, and abuse of prescription drugs, Velasquez is brave in her vulnerability. Eschewing victimhood, Velasquez argues that everyone struggles with valleys in life and though her valley is rarer, it is no different in depth and impact. This is a wonderful and fast read, full of vitality that captures the luminous spirit of kindness that Velasquez so beautifully embodies.--Stacy Shaw
Shaw, Stacy
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Shaw, Stacy. "Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World." Booklist, 1 May 2017, p. 42. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA495034977&it=r&asid=1dc1b06fbadd7b154b30009fd1985330. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495034977
Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World
264.4 (Jan. 23, 2017): p69.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World
Lizzie Velasquez, with Catherine Avril Morris.
Hachette, $22 (224p) ISBN 978-0-316-27243-8
Debut author and motivational speaker Velasquez delivers a heartfelt and powerful treatise about the importance of being kind, gleaned from first-hand experience. The author, who has neonatal progeroid syndrome, a rare combination of Marfan syndrome and lipodystrophy that prevents her from gaining weight, was bullied in school and online. One day she found that a picture of her had been made into a cruel meme that identified her as the "world's ugliest woman," accompanied by comments like "Why didn't her parents abort her?" "Not one comment was kind," Velasquez remembers. Velasquez's solution to this kind of harassment is to create a "culture of kindness," extended even toward bullies. This might seem inconceivable, she admits, but she believes it's the only way to solve the problem of bullying. She also points out that serious challenges can bring personal depth and understanding that's impossible without those lessons. The author doesn't pretend to be a Pollyanna, however--like anyone else, she has faced dark times, even becoming for a time addicted to anti-anxiety meds. Velasquez counsels readers to lose the shame over their problems--it's a complete waste of time and energy--and focus on their own gifts. Readers will be inspired by Velasquez's resilient spirit. Agent: Cassie Hanjian, Waxman Leavell Literary. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World." Publishers Weekly, 23 Jan. 2017, p. 69. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479714208&it=r&asid=79941f08e89df83b28ed1f5c70b25e99. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479714208
Book Review: Dare to Be Kind
Spirituality & Health Magazine
reviewed by Jennifer Haupt –
Dare to Be Kind
By Lizzie Velasquez
Hachette Books
If there was ever a time to encourage more kindness, it is now. Dare to Be Kind: How Extraordinary Compassion Can Transform Our World, by 28-year-old motivational speaker Lizzie Velasquez, isn’t so much a self-help book as a mandate for creating a “culture of kindness.”
Bullied-teen-turned-YouTube-star, Velasquez was born with a rare congenital disease that, among other things, prevents her from accumulating body fat. In this book, she draws on a lifetime of personal experiences being told she was ugly. When she was 17 years old, she came across an online video of “The World’s Ugliest Woman” with thousands of hits, only to discover that it featured her. With a lot of support from her parents, Velasquez created a TED talk to speak up for victims of bullying and encourage kindness. Reading this upbeat book, it’s easy to see why Velasquez’s YouTube channel has drawn more than a half million subscribers.
This powerful, beautiful young woman attributes her success to building resilience. She also admits this is a constant struggle—which is refreshing to hear. Her point is that everyone struggles and everyone needs compassion. It’s a universal need. She writes: “I consider it not just my work but also my purpose to speak out and reach as many people as I can with my message that we must be kind to each other, no matter what. We are all the same.”
Dare to Be Kind is filled with gems of guidance for parents, whether you’re trying to protect your children from bullying or raise kids who value compassion. The advice isn’t anything new—monitor your children on social media and encourage individuality—but some things bear repeating. As Velasquez writes, “Kindness starts in the home.” This book is also a hopeful “hang in there” rallying cry for any child going through the hell of being bullied or just trying to figure out where they fit into the world.
BOOK REVIEW: We choose our own happiness
Tim Parrish, For The Leaf-Chronicle Published 11:27 a.m. CT March 6, 2015
(Photo: Contributed)
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“Choosing Happiness” (Liguori Publications, 2014) by Lizzie Velasquez
This is some book. It will make you think. The writing in “Choosing Happiness” by Lizzie Velasquez is direct and understandable. No fancy-schmancy words and no attempt to dumb-down the topic.
What makes this book inspiring are not the words used by the author but it’s the author herself. If you don’t know who Lizzie Velasquez is – and she likes to be called Lizzie – then take the time to Google her name and read about her life and achievements since her birth in 1989. Do that for starters.
Then read “Choosing Happiness,” her latest book. What you will discover is a person who could have given up on life beginning when she started kindergarten, but she didn’t. In fact, giving up on a project or walking away from a challenge is something unheard of with this woman.
Velasquez, age 25, is one of only three people in the world known to have the medical syndrome that makes gaining weight impossible. She has zero body fat. The most she has ever weighed is 64 pounds. There are physical anomalies that could make daily living a struggle if she allowed that to happen. But she doesn’t.
According to the author, we choose to be happy and we do this every day. We can wallow in self-pity, anger, frustration, or depression or we can tackle life head-on and do the best we can each day. The decision, though, is ours.
There were many days when Velasquez did not want to leave her home, exhausted from trying to forge friendships with people, including children, who often were cruel and bullied her. It only made her stronger.
On one occasion she was getting ready to deliver a talk before 5,000 people, the largest crowd she had ever addressed. Sensing that Velasquez was nervous, a vendor gave her a small rock with an angel inside it and told Lizzie to hold it for comfort. She did just that and that angel rock now travels with her. She thinks everybody needs an angel rock to help guide them in life.
Velasquez believes we all have the potential to accomplish much in our lives. Using her own life as an example, she offers numerous suggestions for facing adversity, disrespect, a lack of understanding, outright meanness, and bullying by people.
On Saturday, March 14, her documentary “A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story” premieres at the Austin, Texas Film Festival.
Tim Parrish
Freelance writer
news@theleafchronicle.com