On the morning of September 16th, 1919, Adolf Hitler was nobody.

He was 30 years old. He had accomplished nothing notable in his life up to that point.

In fact, he was downwardly mobile, a shiftless man living in hostels constantly on the verge of homelessness.

And then he attended a meeting of the little-known German Workers' Party. He was asked to do so by the German military to keep an eye on this new party and see what they were all about.

There were only a handful of people there at the meeting.

A couple of them got up and gave boring, forgettable speeches.

Hitler was not impressed.

Then one final speaker got up and began to speak on a subject that was near to Hitler's heart.

The man was advocating that Bavaria, a region of southern Germany, separate from the rest of the German nation.

Hitler was outraged. Above all, he believed in German unification.

Hitler stood up and began to speak.

Within a few minutes, Hitler had his small audience absolutely captivated.

The passion and eloquence with which he spoke on the issue was unlike anything they had seen or heard before.

He was so vociferous and so persuasive that the man with whom he disagreed fled from the room before the end of the speech.

In his autobiography, Hitler wrote of this moment, quote,

What I had always felt and assumed to be true was now being proven. I could speak. Hitler lacked

many of the attributes of a great man. He did not have tremendous energy or a strong work ethic.

In fact, he was almost unbelievably lazy. He was intelligent, but not brilliant. He was not a good organizer or manager.

But he could do this one thing.

He could speak.

And it tells you something about how important that one ability is,

how every other ability pales in comparison,

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