| Success Is Not Achieved in a Vacuum | | | | for genius. Seeing beyond your circumstances with |
| We need to always remember that we never | | | | determination and courage will open vistas previously |
| achieve success alone. There are people all around us | | | | closed to you. |
| who help make it happen. | | | | Life was better only because she was on her own. |
| Ben Carson was just another kid trying to survive. | | | | She had the freedom to create the life she wanted. |
| Raised by a single mom in the Detroit ghettos he had | | | | But how? Leaning on a strong faith she struggled for |
| a terrible temper and an even worse self-esteem. He | | | | ways to make life better for her sons - often |
| was labeled the "stupidest kid in the 5 th grade" and | | | | working 2-3 jobs just to provide food and housing. |
| no one held much hope for his future. How then did | | | | Yet she knew it would take more than that to help |
| this angry boy become the renowned Director of | | | | her boys live up to their potential - to break from the |
| Pediatric Neurosurgery of the John Hopkins Hospital in | | | | cycle of poverty. |
| Baltimore, Maryland as well as one of the world's top | | | | She decided to take radical action to change things |
| brain surgeons? | | | | for Ben and Curtis by setting "house rules." Her boys |
| His mother. | | | | could only watch TV for 2 hours a week. They had |
| When Circumstances Change | | | | to go to the library, then pick out - and read - two |
| Change isn't bad - it may be difficult and | | | | books every week. To earn their privilege of TV |
| uncomfortable -- but it isn't bad. Out of change | | | | time they had to give her a written report of the |
| comes the opportunity for growth and | | | | books they read. Both boys resisted but they did it. |
| transformation. Negatives can be turned into | | | | They didn't find out until much later that Sonya, with |
| positives. Dead ends can boomerang us back better | | | | her 3 rd grade education, couldn't even read the |
| than before. | | | | reports. |
| But today's story is not about Ben Carson, it's about | | | | Her course of action paid off. Ben, in particular, |
| Sonya Carson - the woman who created greatness | | | | changed as he realized he was not really stupid. The |
| in her son. | | | | day he answered a question in class that no one else |
| Sonya Carson grew up in harsher circumstances than | | | | could answer - all because he had learned it from one |
| her son. Abandoned when she was just a child (one | | | | of the books Sonya forced him to read - gave him a |
| of 24 children), she was raised in abusive foster | | | | voracious appetite for knowledge. Suddenly he was |
| homes. She longed for love, safety and a sense of | | | | devouring books - learning everything he could. He |
| belonging. She only made it through the 3 rd grade | | | | realized he held his future in his hands. He took that |
| before she had to leave school. Whatever dreams | | | | understanding and applied himself until he became one |
| she had were being crushed by a world of poverty | | | | of the world's top brain surgeons. |
| and abuse. | | | | We Do Not Create Success Alone |
| She was only 13 years old when 28 year-old Robert | | | | Ben Carson freely admits he owes his success to his |
| Carson married her. Robert treated the beautiful little | | | | mother, Sonya. He's right. Yes, of course he had to |
| girl like a beloved "china doll". Sonya believed she had | | | | apply himself, but it was Sonya who gave him the |
| found everything she had looked for during her lonely | | | | desire to do so. It was her action that convinced him |
| childhood. | | | | he could be anything he wanted to be. |
| It all changed when she had children. Suddenly her | | | | Somehow this amazing woman rose above all the |
| devoted husband was rarely at home, and she had | | | | terrible circumstances of her own life in order to |
| to endure whispered conversations on the phone | | | | create a better understanding and a better life for |
| when he did show up. Her life plummeted back into | | | | her boys. Yes, the circumstances of her life changed |
| poverty and neglect. She took it until her two boys | | | | as both her boys became successful men - Curtis an |
| were 8 and 10, then she found the courage to leave | | | | engineer, and Ben, a doctor. But ask her what her |
| her husband and move to Boston. | | | | greatest success is and she'd say... |
| Extreme Circumstances Can Produce Genius | | | | "Helping my boys reach their fullest potential. |
| Extreme circumstances can be the breeding ground | | | | |