After being severely burned as a child, John O’Leary shares his story around the United States. O’Leary told that story Wednesday night to an audience of 300 students and faculty at Barsema Auditorium.

“With the approval of the Department of Accountancy , I took the initiative to invite John O’Leary to speak at NIU,” said Accountancy Professor Don Tidrick. “I have had the privilege of hearing many outstanding speakers, but John O’Leary is the most impressive motivational speaker I have heard during my 30-year career.”

Tidrick organized the event.

Though Tidrick would have liked for more people to attend the speech, due to limited seats, O’Leary’s appearance was only open to accountancy students and the business faculty and staff.

Usually the accountancy department invites professionals to campus to speak with students about their experiences, but Tidrick said that O’Leary made a big impact on him when he viewed a speech by him last year.

“Although not an accounting professional, John O’Leary is an inspirational person and speaker who will benefit our students’ views of what they can accomplish in life,” he said.

At the age of nine, John O’Leary wanted to be like all the boys on his block in St. Louis, Mo. When he would see these boys on the side walk playing with fire, he played follow the leader. Before the days of “Don’t try this at home,” O’Leary decided to do the same. After setting a piece of cardboard on fire in his garage, he wanted to pour some gasonline on it to watch the flames “come to life.” Trying to pour a little bit of gas out of a five-gallon tank that was 2/3 of the way full ended up turning into an explosion.

Not participating in the kindergarten rule of “stop, drop and roll,” O’Leary ran through the house trying to find anyone to help him. If it wasn’t for his older brother Jim, 17 at the time, O’Leary wouldn’t be alive today. One hundred percent of his body was covered in burns, and 80 percent of them were third degree.

Students said they were inspired by O’Leary’s story.

“Being an international student at NIU, courage was my biggest barrier,” said Daihee Cho. “Listening to Mr. O’Leary this evening made me understand [what] courage really meant.”

After O’Leary’s speech, Bree Nation, a student in the audience, gave O’Leary a hug and told him how much she respects him for sharing his story.

“I know now not to look at my life as being hard because I know there are people who have it worse than me,” Nation said. “It was empowering.”