He was born with severe hearing loss and struggled to learn because of his hearing. His father taught him that to truly pay attention, he needs to use his eyes to hear. He learned to read lips which worked out for him until he went on a church mission to Chile and had to learn Spanish as a near-deaf young adult man. His difficulties were almost unbearable, even with the best of technology at the time. Later, he graduated from college and took advantage of a book-reading program in his job where he could get paid for reading self-improvement books.