This past weekend I watched the movie Gifted Hands which was about Dr. Ben Carson. If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend you watch it for some inspiration and entertainment. Cuba Gooding Jr. did an amazing job in the film.
Many of us think because we started out with few advantages that we aren’t capable of achieving our goals. If anyone knows hard times, it’s Carson. His mother was in and out of foster homes during her childhood and battled severe depression later in life. She was on her own to raise Ben and his brother with little resources. She was on her own because her husband (Ben’s dad) decided to sell drugs and eventually start another family while still married to her. I don’t want to spoil the movie if you haven’t seen it but as you can imagine, this led to quite the ripple effect including extreme anger in young Ben Carson.
Wild Success
How did this person from such humble beginning go on to be the youngest major division director in Johns Hopkins hospital’s history as director of pediatric neurosurgery at age 33? He is also the first to successfully separate conjoined twins who were joined at the back of the head. He has now announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election.
Hard work
There is no doubt that Carson has worked extremely hard to get where he is. He was inspired by something his mother would often say…”You can be anything you want to be in this life as long as you’re willing to work for it.” And work for it he did. Frustrated with her family’s plot in life, Mrs. Carson once angrily remarked to Ben and his brother while they were watching TV, “If you spend your free time developing your God-given gifts, it won’t be long before they’re watching you on TV.” This lit a fire in Ben and he became a ferocious reader and would spend countless hours at the library learning about a variety of subjects.
Mindset Shift
When Ben was young, he had a very poor self-image. He told himself that he had a “dumb brain” and wouldn’t amount to much. Once he realized his actual self he began seeing major strides in his results.
Faith
At one point Ben became enraged with his friend at something as trivial as which song was on the radio and tried to stab him. Fortunately the knife broke instead.
Ben ran home and prayed to God to take the anger from him. After praying and believing the anger was miraculously gone!
What can we take from Dr. Benjamin Carson?
Dr. Carson was certainly given natural gifts. We might not be called to be world class neurosurgeons. However, with a dose of hard work, mindset shift, and faith there are no limits to what we can achieve.