Motivational speaker redefines what it means to be "beautiful".

Lizzie Velasquez is a 24-year-old motivational speaker who suffers from a very rare syndrome (so rare that only two other cases of it are currently known) called Neonatal Progeroid Syndrome. The condition has caused her to go blind in one eye and prevents her from gaining weight, no matter how much she eats, and accellerates aging. Lizzie eats up to 8,000 calories per day just to stay alive, typically snacking every fifteen to twenty minutes.

When Lizzie was in high school, she discovered that a classmate had put a video of her up on YouTube titled "World's Ugliest Woman". By the time she discovered it, there were already millions of views and hundreds of harsh, hurtful comments.

After watching the YouTube video, Lizzie decided she would rise above the cruelty and campaign against bullying. "I use that negativity to light my fire" she said at a TED talk in Austin last December, sharing how she decided that day to use the hatred and negativity to fuel her resolve to define herself on her own terms.

"I've had a really difficult life," she said. "But that's okay. I'm going to let my goals and my success and my accomplishments define me, not my outer appearance."