The inspiring story of Ben Carson

This is the story of a colored boy named Ben Carson. When he was a little boy, his brother, his mother and he were abandoned by their father. They were very poor people who lived in a very dangerous and violent neighborhood in Detroit.

This kid was considered the stupid of the class. Imagine what it means for someone, when they look at you, to see you as stupid. In the end, Ben was carrying a label that he came to believe. He had so much tension, sadness and anger that in a moment of despair he took a knife and tried to stab a friend of his with the fortune that the blade broke when it hit the belt buckle.

At that time, young Ben, experienced an emotional crisis and he realized that he had to do something different, that he could not continue his life like that ... but he did not know what to do.

An American child spends an average of 7.5 hours a day watching television. Ben was no exception at the time. However, one day her mother told her that she had had a revelation during a dream and that what they had to do, both her brother and Ben, was read. They read practically nothing.

Since they had no money to buy books, they were going to the Detroit Public Library.

Ben became interested in nature: for minerals, vegetables and animals.

One fine day, the science teacher came to class with a black rock. A strange rock. He then told the class: "What is it?" Ben immediately knew that that rock was oxidian. However, Ben was considered the class fool… why would he speak. I wait for the smartest people to speak, those who knew more, those who had more knowledge… but those boys were silent. Then he waited for the others to speak, the ones who were a little less intelligent ... but they didn't say anything either. In the end, he shyly raised his hand.

When he raised his hand, the rest of his companions looked at him in surprise as if to say: "Hehehe ... but Ben ... but how dare you?" The professor could have said, "Come on Ben, you don't know this" and put the rock away. But The teacher looked at Ben and said:

- Ben, do you know what this is?

"Yes, I know," Ben replied shyly.

"What is it?" Asked the professor.

"It's Oxidian," Ben answered.

- Yes, it is oxidian.

At that moment Ben watched as the faces of his companions changed. The professor could have said, "Yes Ben, Oxidiana, very good, you got it right." Yet he said:

- Ben, do you know anything else about the Oxiadiana?

Boy did Ben know about the Oxiadian. He began to discuss oxidiana in great detail. They were all puzzled.

This child who was the class fool, who had a very hard upbringing in poverty and difficulty ... this child underwent a very profound change. So profound was the change that he was number 1 in the class, number 1 in the school, number 1 of all Detroit schools, he was awarded a scholarship by Yale University and is the best child neurosurgeon in the world: Dr. Ben Carson , chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland.

Ben Carson, a person seemingly doomed by his socially and demographically adverse circumstances, became the best child neurosurgeon in the world, the person with the most experience in craniopagus, conjoined conjoined twins. We are talking about 100 hour operations.

Ben Carson is an example of how someone can get rid of the labels imposed by others and that we end up believing them.

Excerpted from a lecture by mario alonso puig.