20 VERY MOTIVATING STORIES YOU MUST READ BEFORE GIVING UP ON YOUR BIG DREAM (# 2 Benjamin Carson)

Previously on 20 VERY MOTIVATING STORIES YOU MUST READ BEFORE GIVING UP ON YOUR BIG DREAM

Click Here!

# 2 Ben Carson

“Once you begin to understand and realize what you are capable of, the whole world changes,” he says. “When I was in the fifth grade and I thought I was a dummy, I was relatively depressed. That’s probably why I was angry all the time. But once I discovered through reading that I could control my own future, it was like someone had lifted a veil; I couldn’t get enough knowledge at that point. Everything that was new was exciting to me, and I began to think about what I was going to do, how I was going to change the world.” He pauses and seems to reflect on his profound childhood transformation before finishing his thought. “I had the same brain, just a different attitude.”
Ben Carson.

Carson was born in September 18, 1951 Detroit, Michigan, the son of Sonya (née Copeland) and Robert Solomon Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist minister. His parents were both from rural Georgia. His mother Sonya had dropped out of school in the third grade, and married when she was only 13.

MOMENTS OF PAIN AND FAILURE

As a boy, Ben Carson watched his father walk out on his family, closing the door on a life the 8-year-old would never know again. Through periods of heartbreak, fear and financial struggle, his mother, Sonya Carson, provided for Ben and his brother. A determined woman with only a third-grade education, she insisted her sons see their potential and that they never let circumstances get them down. She taught them that education would change their lives. She worked at two, sometimes three, jobs at a time to provide.  He struggled throughout elementary school both academically and emotionally with his temper. In fifth grade, Carson was at the bottom of his class. His classmates called him "dummy" and he developed a violent, uncontrollable temper.

CHALLENGING FAILURE

When Mrs. Carson saw Benjamin’s consistent failing grades, she determined to turn her sons' lives around. She sharply limited the boys' television watching and refused to let them outside to play until they had finished their homework each day. She required them to read two library books a week and to give her written reports on their reading even though, with her own poor education, she could barely read what they had written.

BREAKTHROUGH

As a result of that within a few weeks, Carson astonished his classmates by identifying rock samples his teacher had brought to class. He recognized them from one of the books he had read. "It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't stupid," he recalled later. Carson continued to amaze his classmates with his new found knowledge and within a year he was at the top of his class.  The hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him, and he began to read voraciously on all subjects. He determined to become a physician, and he learned to control the violent temper that still threatened his future. After graduating with honors from his high school, he attended Yale University, where he earned a degree in Psychology. From Yale, he went to the Medical School of the University of Michigan, where his interest shifted from psychiatry to neurosurgery. His excellent hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional reasoning skills made him a superior surgeon. After medical school he became a neurosurgery resident at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

SUCCESS, VINDICATION AND VALIDATION

At age 32, he became the hospital's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery. In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins. The Binder twins were born joined at the back of the head. Operations to separate twins joined in this way had always failed, resulting in the death of one or both of the infants. Carson agreed to undertake the operation.  A 70-member surgical team, led by Dr. Carson, worked for 22 hours. Ben Carson had the possibility mentality and was ready to look into a problem and define the answer to the problem:

...they would always exsanguinate. They would bleed to death, and I said, 'There's got to be a way around that... I was talking to a friend of mine, who was a cardiothoracic surgeon, who was the chief of the division, and I said, 'You guys operate on the heart in babies, how do you keep them from exsanguinating' and he says, 'Well, we put them in hypothermic arrest.' I said, 'Is there any reason that – if we were doing a set of Siamese twins that were joined at the head – that we couldn't put them into hypothermic arrest, at the appropriate time, when we're likely to lose a lot of blood?' and he said, 'No way.' ...two months later, along came these doctors from Germany, presenting this case of Siamese twins. And, I was asked for my opinion, and I then began to explain the techniques that should be used, and how we would incorporate hypothermic arrest... And, my colleagues and I, a few of us went over to Germany. We looked at the twins. We actually put in scalp expanders, and five months later we brought them over and did the operation, and lo and behold, it worked.

At the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.

Carson's other surgical innovations have included the first intra-uterine procedure to relieve pressure on the brain of a hydrocephalic fetal twin, and a hemispherectomy, in which an infant suffering from uncontrollable seizures has half of its brain removed. This stops the seizures, and the remaining half of the brain actually compensates for the missing hemisphere.

In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Carson is in constant demand as a public speaker, and devotes much of his time to meeting with groups of young people. In 2008, the White House announced that Benjamin Carson would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.  Dr. Carson's books include a memoir, Gifted Hands, and a motivational book, Think Big. Carson says the letters of "Think Big" stand for the following:

Talent:            Our Creator has endowed all of us not just with the ability to sing, dance or throw a ball, but with intellectual talent. Start getting in touch with that part of you that is intellectual and develop that, and think of careers that will allow you to use that.

Honesty:        If you lead a clean and honest life, you don't put skeletons in the closet. If you put skeletons in the closet, they definitely will come back just when you don't want to see them and ruin your life.

Insight:        It comes from people who have already gone where you're trying to go. Learn from their triumphs and their mistakes.

Nice:              If you're nice to people, then once they get over the suspicion of why you're being nice, they will be nice to you.

Knowledge: It makes you into a more valuable person. The more knowledge you have, the

more people need you. It's an interesting phenomenon, but when people need you, they pay you, so you'll be okay in life.

Books:    They are the mechanism for obtaining knowledge, as opposed to television.

In-Depth Learning: Learn for the sake of knowledge and understanding, rather than for the

         sake of impressing people or taking a test.

God:                      Never get too big for Him.

THIS MAN:

1.       At 33, Carson became the youngest physician to head a major division at Johns Hopkins.

2.       Became the first surgeon in history to separate a pair of Siamese twins

3.       Carried out the first intra-uterine procedure

4.       Brought  the hemispherectomy innovation

5.       Has awarded more than 3,400 college scholarships through the Carson Scholars Fund

6.       Left a legacy

 Elijah Okon

Please post your comments on today's post below. Share your thoughts with us!