"The American dream, to me, means that you have the ability to determine where you're going, formulate your dream, and then to put in motion all the building blocks that will help you achieve it. I am so grateful that I was born in America. There’s no place that offers the opportunities we have. All it requires is the right mindset and the willingness to work. People who realize that are already halfway toward realizing their American dream."
"Growing up where I lived, it was a macho thing to get angry, kick down the wall and punch in the window. But I came to understand that when you react on impulse like that, it actually is a sign of weakness, because it means that other people and the environment can control you, and I decided that I didn't want to be that easily controlled."
- Benjamin Carson, M.D.
Ben Carson, M.D.
Benjamin Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 18, 1951. His mother Sonya had dropped out of school in the third grade and married when she was only 13. When Benjamin was eight, his parents divorced, and Mrs. Carson was left to raise Benjamin and his older brother Curtis on her own. She worked at two, sometimes three, jobs at a time to provide for her boys.
FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP OF HIS CLASS
Benjamin and his brother fell farther and farther behind in school. In fifth grade, he was at the bottom of his class, his classmates called him "dummy", and he developed a violent, uncontrollable temper.
When Mrs. Carson saw Benjamin's 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.
Within a few weeks, young Benjamin astonished his classmates by identifying rock samples his teacher 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.
DETERMINED TO BE A PHYSICIAN
... & CONTROL HIS ISSUES
The hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him, and he began to read voraciously on all subjects. He was determined to become a physician, and he learned to control the violent temper that still threatened his future. After graduating with honors from high school, Ben attended Yale University, where he earned a degree in Psychology.
From Yale, Ben Carson 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. In 1983 at age 32, he was appointed the hospital's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, a position he still holds.
MAKING MEDICAL HISTORY
In 1987, Dr. 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. Dr. Carson agreed to undertake the operation, and he led a 70-member surgical team that worked for 22 hours. At the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.
Dr. Carson has written over 90 neurosurgical publications and has been awarded 24 honorary degrees and dozens of national citations of merit.
IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT MEDICINE
In addition to b
eing a world famous neurosurgeon, Dr. Carson has authored a number of bestsellers, including Gifted Hands, The Big Picture, and Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence. The first book is an autobiography, and the latter two are about his personal philosophies of success that incorporate hard work and faith in God.
In 1997, Dr. Carson took a leave of absence from his surgical duties to address groups of young people around the country. He is also the president and co-founder of the Carson Scholars Fund which recognizes young people of all backgrounds for exceptional academic and humanitarian accomplishments.
IN HIS OWN WORDS:
ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE
Recently, Dr. Carson sat down for an interview with the Academy of Achievement. Here are his thoughts, especially for young people.
On Other Kids Being Smarter Than Me: "That's exactly the way I felt when I wasn't doing well. I would look at some of the kids in my 
class -- Bobby, Steve, Lenora -- who always got "A"s and I would just say, 'They're inherently smarter than I am. I just don't understand things the way they do.' And I would leave it at that. The fact of the matter is, once I developed confidence in myself and began to believe that I was smart, then all of my innate abilities began to come out. There is no such thing as an average human being. If you have a normal brain, you are superior, and there's almost nothing that you can't do."
On What's Really Important In Life: "The most important thing to me is taking your God-given talents and developing them to the utmost so that you can be useful to your fellow man, period. And, what really motivates me right now, to be honest with you, is the opportunity to get other people to understand what's important in life - and it doesn't have a whole lot to do with the accumulation of wealth, titles, degrees or power. Even though, interestingly enough, when you do develop your God-given talents and you become valuable, those things just seem to accumulate."
[ To read the entire Academy Of Achievement interview with Dr. Carson, click this link: .]