In 1987 in Ulm, Germany, Siamese twins were born to Teresa and Josef Binder. Attached at the head and sharing a vein which carried blood from the boys’ brains back to their hearts, the babies needed a miracle to survive. In order to save one child, Teresa and Josef were told they would have to sacrifice the other. What parent could calculate such a decision? Instead, the Binders searched for their miracle and finally found it halfway around the world.

Growing up poor and underprivileged in inner city Detroit, Dr. Ben Carson had met adversity with courage and determination. At 33 he became chief pediatric neurosurgeon at Baltimore’s prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital. Two years later his path and the Binders’ crossed in a nail biting, 22-hour operation during which Dr. Carson successfully separated the twins in a photo finish with only seconds to spare.

Today, Carson remains a role model for children and adults alike, giving life to children who otherwise have no hope and hope to children who otherwise have no future.

From Dunce Cap To Head Of The Class

Ben Carson was not always the driven overachiever he is today. In fact, in school his fifth grade class universally regarded him as the “class dummy.” On report cards F’s were the norm and D’s were above average. He spent virtually all of his free time watching TV and “hanging out.”

Then, when he was eight years old, young Ben’s life took a drastic turn. His mother, Sonya, kicked Ben’s ne’er-do-well father out and by working three jobs, began raising both Ben and older brother Curtis on her own. Although she knew her boys were talented and was determined that they would get more out of life than the streets had to offer, she needed a way to stimulate them. Her solution: reading.

One day Sonya turned off the television and announced that from then on the boys would be allowed to watch only three shows a week. Also from then on, the boys had to read two books every week and submit written reports to their mother on every one.

Despite their complaints, the boys obeyed. And then, according to Carson, a funny thing happened. He found that books opened up a world of possibilities. His mind was particularly roused by books on such scientific topics as animals, geology and nature. Soon young Ben’s grades began to improve in all subjects. By the time he hit seventh grade, Ben was among the top students in the class. In retrospect it may have been for the best that not until many years later did Ben and Curtis learn that their mother had only a third grade reading level and could barely get through her sons’ book reports.

1. Do you engage in a continuing program of self-improvement?
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2. Do you read industry or sales-related books and magazines each month?
1 2 3 4 5

3. When you are on the road or waiting for a client, do you listen to motivational tapes or otherwise make constructive use of your time?
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4. Before submitting a proposal or making a presentation, do you study all the available material to prepare yourself instead of just trying to “wing it”?
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TOTAL

Finding A Better Way

With continued academic success through high school, Carson set his sights on becoming a doctor. He enrolled at Yale University with a premed major. Despite the daunting academic, financial and social obstacles he faced at Yale, he never forgot his mother’s almost constant exhortation: “You can do anything you want, Bennie, as long as you set your mind to it.” Although his grade point average did not place him at the top of his class, Carson knew he had done his best and would fulfill his ambition to become a doctor.

During summers between school years, Carson returned to Detroit to work and earn money to help pay for his education. One summer, while working as the supervisor on a highway clean-up crew of inner-city teenagers, he learned a valuable lesson about motivation and working around the system to get a job done.

Carson let his crew know early on that although other cleanup crews averaged merely 12 bags of litter a day for a six-person crew, he expected between 100 and 200 filled bags at the end of the work day. He wouldn’t tolerate excuses.

In fact, he used these excuses to his advantage. His fourth day on the job Carson told his charges, “It’s going to be real hot today, so I’ll make you a deal. Beginning tomorrow, we start at six in the morning while it’s still cool. If you work fast to fill up 150 bags, then after that you’re through for the day but you’ll still earn a full day’s pay.”

Although rules governed how the crews were supposed to work, no one criticized Carson for his creative methods. As he says in his autobiography, Gifted Hands, “Doing what must be done as quickly as possible has been my strategy for everything, including medicine. We don’t necessarily have to play by the strict rules if we can find a way that works better, as long as it’s reasonable and doesn’t hurt anybody. Creativity is just learning to do something with a different perspective.”

Continuing on the path to becoming a doctor, Carson was accepted by the University of Michigan School of Medicine. In medical school Carson had a rude awakening. “In my first year,” he says, “I totally bombed out on the first set of comprehensive exams. As a matter of fact my advisor told me I should drop out of medical school.” Remembering his mother’s advice and the lessons he had learned about finding creative solutions, Carson rethought his options.

“I told myself, ‘You’re not dumb, you’ve been through this before – there must be something wrong with the system.’ I sat down and started analyzing things. That’s when I came to the conclusion that I didn’t learn from boring lectures. I got nothing out of them at all and yet I was sitting through six to eight hours of lectures a day. So I said, ‘Instead of wasting that time in the lecture hall, I’m going to spend that six to eight hours reading.’ And after that I had a 180 degree turnaround. The rest of medical school was a snap.”

Because of his faith in his own abilities, whenever Carson encountered an obstacle or an apparent end of the road, he knew that the problem was not with him, but with the system.

“There will always be parts of me that can work with the system and others that can’t,” he says. “I want to increase those parts that can and decrease the parts that can’t. I capitalized on my strengths within the system.

“I tell others to find out what real strength you have within your environment and build on that and let that pull you through the rest. You won’t necessarily be able to do everything the way that the system says you ought to do it, but in the end you will be successful if you know where you are trying to go and have outlined your goals – all you have to do is determine how you are going to get there and remember that it doesn’t necessarily have to be the way that ‘they’ have said you have to get there. This requires some self-confidence, of that there is little doubt.”

1. Do you seek creative or unconventional solutions to challenges you face in sales?
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2. Do you understand what motivates your reports to get the most out of their efforts?
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3. When confronted with a system that works against you, do you find alternative paths to the same goal that work better for you?
1 2 3 4 5

4. Do you have the self-confidence necessary to realize your dreams?
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TOTAL

obstacles to success

After finishing his studies and beginning the residency portion of training to become a doctor, Carson became interested in the field of neurosurgery. With a desire to understand burning within him, Carson voraciously studied every aspect of neurosurgery. Soon, as had often happened in the past, Carson performed so well that the interns and other residents turned responsibilities over to him.

While at the University hospital, he also took the time to get to know the nurses, clerks and other support staffers. Some of the doctors would not speak to these people, but Carson knew that everyone on a team is important and deserves to know it.

By the time he was accepted for one of two spots (out of an applicant pool of 125) to neurosurgery residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, no doubt remained in his mind that he would soon realize his lifelong goal. Little did he know, however, the impact his practice would have on the medical field.

Although Carson downplays the significance of race in his personal success, his story would be incomplete without mentioning the obstacles of racism and prejudice he faced.

When they moved from a predominantly black elementary school to a predominantly white junior high school, both Carson boys faced racial taunts and threats. They were both scared out of a neighborhood football league after being threatened by a group of white men. Perhaps worst of all was an incident in the all-school assembly when Ben won a certificate for best student in eighth grade.

After giving him the award, the presenting teacher berated the white students for allowing a black kid to beat them out. Although he feels that his fellow students didn’t agree with this teacher, the experience was nonetheless hard for the young Carson.

Racism didn’t end in the Ivy League or afterwards. Carson faced jealous colleagues who felt he had not earned his status and there were patients who refused to be treated by a black doctor.

Luckily at Hopkins, the chairman of the neurosurgery department, Dr. Donlin Long, gave patients two options: they could be treated by Dr. Carson or they could take their business elsewhere.

Whenever Carson came across racism, whether overt or latent, he remembered what his mother had told him: some people are just ignorant and it was his responsibility to educate them. In Gifted Hands, he mentions how these attitudes affected him.

“The only pressure I feel is a self-imposed obligation to act as a role model for black youngsters. These young folks need to know that the way to escape their often dismal situations is contained within themselves. They can’t expect other people to do it for them. Perhaps I can’t do much, but I can provide a living example of someone who made it from a disadvantaged background. Basically I’m no different than many of them.”

1. Do you treat all team members as if their roles are vital to the success of your effort?
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2. Do you gather information from every potentially helpful source, whether that means the receptionists and support personnel or the CEO?
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3. Do you allow prejudices, whether your own or someone else’s, to affect the way you do business?
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4. Do you set an example for others through your open-mindedness and appreciation for others?
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TOTAL

Defying The Naysayers

Since becoming a full-fledged neurosurgeon, Carson’s life – both private and professional – has been an exercise in calculated risks against long odds. Although his friend and mentor Dr. Long offered Carson a continued position on the faculty at Hopkins – an enticing offer, indeed – Carson and his wife Candy decided, on the suggestion of a friend, to apply for placement at the Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia. The Carsons jumped at the opportunity, despite drawbacks of culture and distance from friends and family, because the Australian hospital offered more surgical practice in a year than he would see at Hopkins in five years. It turned out to be one of the best years of their lives.

Not only did Candy give birth to the Carsons’ first child, but Dr. Carson also demonstrated what his colleagues at Michigan and Hopkins already knew: he was a very capable surgeon. Soon after arriving he performed a risky technique on a woman to remove a tumor at the base of her skull. Although the senior consultant on the case had told the woman that she would lose all of her cranial nerves, Carson used a radical 10-hour microscopic technique to remove the tumor but leave the nerves intact. On the strength of this and other successes, Carson soon covered surgeries for others until on average he performed two or three craniotomies – opening the patient’s head to remove blood clots and repair aneurysms – per day. This tremendous, often fatiguing, volume of cases provided Carson with one major benefit upon his return to the United States. After his year in Australia, he had brain surgery down pat.

Within a few months of his return to Johns Hopkins, Carson was offered the position as chief of pediatric neurosurgery. Although relatively young, his experience and competence made him a qualified candidate and he was appointed unanimously. At 33 he had accomplished all the goals he had established for himself.

His next challenge came in the form of a four-year-old girl who suffered from terrible seizures. Her name was Maranda Francisco. By the time she came to Hopkins, Maranda was suffering from hundreds of seizures a day and her parents were almost at the end of their rope. She had already seen dozens of doctors and tried innumerable medicines, diets and other solutions.

A doctor in Denver had correctly diagnosed her with Rasmussen’s syndrome, a rare, progressively deteriorative disease that inflames brain tissue. Because the seizures affected just her right side, and stemmed from the left hemisphere of the brain, Carson and colleague Dr. John Freeman felt she was a good candidate for a hemispherectomy. Although this procedure, in which one hemisphere of the brain is removed, entailed significant risks including permanent brain damage or death from complications on the operating table, Carson and Freeman saw no alternative.

Knowing that their daughter could die on the operating table, Maranda’s parents agreed to the risky procedure. (Hemispherectomies are only potentially successful in children, who have less than fully mature brain functions. In successful cases, the remaining hemisphere takes over almost all the functions previously performed, however poorly, by the other half of the brain.)

“I was a little anxious as I went home that night, thinking about the operation and the potential for disaster. So many things could go wrong with Maranda, but I had come to the conclusion years earlier that the Lord would never get me into anything He couldn’t get me out of, so I wasn’t going to spend an excessive amount of time worrying. I’ve adopted the philosophy that if somebody is going to die if we don’t do something, we have nothing to lose by trying. We surely had nothing to lose with Maranda. If we didn’t proceed with the hemispherectomy, death was inevitable. We were at least giving this little girl a chance.”

During eight painstakingly delicate hours of surgery, Carson carefully removed inflamed brain tissue while leaving blood vessels and other vital brain sections intact. As the unconscious Maranda was wheeled out of surgery, her parents approached the gurney. As Maranda’s mother bent down to kiss her daughter, Maranda’s eyes fluttered open and she said, “I love you, Mommy and Daddy.”

Although she faced some complications due to the surgery and lacks certain fine motor skills, Maranda’s recovery has been virtually complete, and she has since been free of seizures.

1. Do you seek out unusual opportunities that will give you an advantage over the competition to help you achieve your goals?
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2. When confronted with a risky yet potentially rewarding sale, do you accept the challenge?
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3. If the alternative means stagnating, are you willing to take calculated risks?
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4. Do you constantly upgrade your skills to be ready for every success opportunity?
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TOTAL

Separating The Twins

Understandably, Maranda’s successful surgery drew a tremendous amount of media attention to Dr. Carson. However, none of his more than 20 hemispherectomy surgeries brought him the notoriety of the Binder twins operation.

On February 2, 1987, Patrick and Benjamin, Siamese twins attached at the back of the head, were born in Ulm, Germany to Teresa and Josef Binder. Although the boys shared no vital organs, they did share parts of the skull, skin tissue and a major vein (responsible for carrying blood from the boys’ brains and back to their hearts).

In previous cases of separating twins attached at the head, doctors usually sacrificed the weaker child to save the stronger one. Teresa and Josef Binder refused to let one of their children die, so they searched for a neurosurgeon who would try to separate and save both boys. That neurosurgeon was Ben Carson.

In reviewing the twins’ case, Carson knew the shared vein would provide the major obstacle to successfully separating the boys. He directed a group of 70 doctors, nurses and other assistants through five long months of preparation. This was to be the first operation of its kind, and Carson wanted to be absolutely sure that every member of the team was prepared for anything.

The operation, which lasted 22 hours, entailed cooling the twins’ body temperatures to 68 degrees and stopping blood flow to the brain for one hour to separate the boys. Then he and Dr. Long each operated on one boy to close the skulls.

At the beginning of the one hour without blood, the team started a timer. If the delicate work of separating and closing up the twins was not completed within that one hour, the boys most likely would have bled to death.

Carson allotted between three and five minutes for the separation and the remaining portion of the hour for closing the skull. Because of complications, he needed 20 minutes to finish separating the boys. This meant he had 15 fewer minutes to work with than he had planned. Working under these highly pressurized conditions, Carson made it with almost no time to spare.

As happened so many times in the past when he ignored the many naysayers and took a great risk to do the impossible, Carson, and the Binder twins, came out ahead. Although both Doctors Carson and Long feared the boys would die on the operating table or within 24 hours of the operation, when Patrick and Benjamin came out of their comas ten days after the operation, to almost everyone’s amazement they could both see and move their hands and feet.

Although some complications followed, both boys recovered from the operation and returned to live their lives – separately – in Germany.

1. Do you seek out challenges that offer opportunities for personal and professional growth?
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2. When others say something can’t be done, do you examine the situation to determine for yourself what is possible?
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3. Do you track your progress daily to gauge where you stand in relation to your goal?
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4. Do you see challenges as growth opportunities? 1 2 3 4 5
TOTAL

After the Binder twins operation, Carson became quite a media darling. He has tried to quell the celebrity that has grown around him and his accomplishments, except in cases where he believes he can positively affect the lives of others. He is especially active with young people, and within the constraints of a busy surgical schedule and spending time with his family, addresses groups of all ages on his success lessons. To this end he has also written a follow-up book to Gifted Hands, entitled Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential For Excellence.

“If I had a parting statement,” he told PSP, “it would be that in life everyone faces obstacles; success or failure is determined by how you relate to them. If you approach that obstacle and say, ‘This is a containing fence – I can’t go any farther,’ you stop there. If you go up to that hurdle and say, ‘This is just a hurdle’ and jump over it, pretty soon you’re looking for other hurdles to overcome and once you do that no one can stop you from realizing your dreams.”