Peterborough's Ben Harkin knows no limits despite being born without arms

Ben Harkin may have been born without arms but there is almost nothing he can't do.

"I can cook, I can clean. If I can't do it, it's not worth doing. The only thing I can't do is change the Occupational Health and Safety (regulations) like going on rollercoasters in America," Ben, 29, said.

It has never happened to him in Australia, but in America he was told to get off a ride because he had no left arm and his right arm finishes at his elbow. 

Ben's can-do spirit has taken him all over the world, and it's the stories of his adventures that has turned him into one of the region's most popular motivational speakers.

The youngest of four children, Ben was born with congenital bilateral malformation of the upper limbs.

Despite having ultrasounds during the pregnancy, it was never picked up. "They measured the length of the leg, heartbeat and brain activity. They didn't look for 10 fingers and 10 toes, so if you're not looking for something you don't see it," Ben said.

While it was a "bit of a shock" for everyone at the time, Ben never asks why. "It doesn't matter. No point going back and looking for the why this has happened? It has happened," he said. "You could go on and on about why things happen but I can't change it. Why worry about things you can't change?"

That's one of the messages he has for young people at his motivational talks. "It's like complaining about the weather, you can't change the weather, although we are slowly getting there," he said with a laugh. "Just deal with it, get an umbrella or get a hat." It's not just the positive message that he delivers that leaves his audience inspired, it's also the way he delivers it with his cheeky sense of humour.

He said he was often randomly stopped in the street by parents who tell him how much his talk had impacted and changed their children. "It's very rewarding," he said.

"When I walk into a primary school you can see kids pointing and saying "what happened to you?" But when I walk out it's high-fives," he said. "It just changes their total perception and acceptance of people who are different."

Ben's own school days revolved around catching the bus to and from the farm he grew up on. He joked that he never missed the bus because it was parked at his house each night. "I was a normal kid, just getting through life, just doing things as you do, you just learn how to do things a different way," he said.

Ben got his first prosthetic arm when he was just a few months old, but at the age of seven decided it was easier without it. Although, at 16, he did try and get another prosthetic arm to help him hold a can of Coke, but he only used it once. He ended up making his own using duct tape, Paddle Pop sticks, a toilet roll and stubbie holder which was much more successful. "They're big and heavy and smelly and crappy and expensive and not worth the effort," he said.

"Too much effort for getting something simple done," he said. "Get rid of it, move on." It was quicker to use his feet, he said, and that's what he did when it came time to brush his teeth and learn to write.

After high school, Ben started a double degree in commerce and science at university, and majored in finance. "After my second year of science I got rid of that because it was too much of a hassle. OH&S doesn't allow for bare feet in a science lab," he said. "They compromised and gave me an assistant and I used her hands, but she knew nothing about science."

After uni Ben spent six months looking for a job and finally secured a three-month contract working for Corangamite Shire Council. When that ended, the keen soccer player headed overseas to the World Cup in Brazil to watch Australia play.

One of the stories he often shares with his audiences is the time he was selected over AFL top 10 pick Gary Rohan to play for the Cobden football club under 18s. "I filled in when they were short. This day they weren't short but I was given a game. I was clearly a better player than him," he recalls with a laugh.

It was during that trip to Brazil that he decided to head to America and was in Nashville when he tripped running up some stairs and "fell flat" on his face. He ended up with seven stitches on his forehead, eight staples in the back of his head and bleeding on the brain in two spots.

When he arrived at the hospital they asked him a series of questions such as: what day it was and did he know where he was? Neither of those he could answer but when they asked for his travel insurance number to cover the $14,000 bill, funnily enough he was able to recall it.

When he was released from hospital he was told to get straight to an emergency room if he had any dizziness, slurred speech, memory loss or numbness because chances were that he could be having a stroke which could kill him. So instead of staying alone at his hotel room, he rang a friend from Wisconsin he'd met at university in Australia and ended up staying with her for a few days while he recovered. "The message from that is be friendly to people, you never know when you're going to need them," he said.

Not one to shy away from an adventure, Ben decided to move to Vietnam after he returned from the US. "I didn't want to wait six months to find another job," he said. He booked the flight on Tuesday and left on Thursday. "Mum was speechless," he said. It was a spur-of-the moment decision, but something his parents are now used to.

He arrived at his cousin's hostel in Vietnam and got a job straight away. "First time I started looking for a job it took me six months. Went to Vietnam and it took me 30 seconds," he said. After six months working at the hostel, Ben took a job teaching English for two years before returning home in 2016 to spend time with his new niece.

While waiting for Centrelink and the job agencies to help him with his job search, Ben decided to spend a few nights camping in his swag in Portland. When he got to Portland, he decided to keep driving and ended up in Darwin for a few days.

Eventually, his case worker found him a job at South West Tools where he worked until his gig as a motivational speaker started to take off. Now he travels all over Victoria speaking to young people. "I like talking to 12 to 14 year olds. They're at the intersection of their life, but I'm happy to talk to anybody," he said. "I talk to the preps and ones and twos. They just like it when I make a balloon animal or something."

Ben said things were starting to change for people with disabilities. "What I would like in the media is for people to be on the TV with limb deficiencies," he said. "It's only now that they've got people in wheelchairs on the TV."

Ben said that he had experienced the impact that one of the world's most popular motivational speakers Nick Vujicic has had on the influence on the treatment of people with disabilities, especially in Vietnam.

Ben and Nick - who was born without arms or legs - met in hospital when they were kids. "The Vietnamese Government has got him in quite a few times to talk. The first time I went to Vietnam you'd walk down the street and people would spit on you. Now I walk down the street and people will point at me and say: 'That's Nick Vujicic'," he said.