We honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a special encore discussion on leadership, civil rights, and moving forward together. Acclaimed neurosurgeon and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson joins David to share his unique perspectives on race, community, faith, and equality in America. Dr. Carson reflects on our nation’s progress since the civil rights movement while weighing in on today's challenges. He calls for common-ground solutions to issues like border policy, healthcare, and more. From uplifting personal stories to insightful commentary on respecting our differences, this powerful conversation provides inspiration to carry on Dr. King’s legacy.TRANSCRIPTION (AI transcription software was sued to convert spoken language into written text)David: I'm honored to be joined this week by Dr. Ben Carson. Ben is a groundbreaking neurosurgeon who served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. You might recall he was also a candidate for president in the 2016 Republican primaries. Currently, he's the chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute and an author of several books, including his new and most timely book, Created Equal.Mr. Secretary, Dr. Carson. Welcome to the podcast.Ben: Thank you. I'm delighted to be with you in yourDavid: books gifted hands and created equal. You shared some of your humble beginnings and background arising from poverty in Detroit and Boston, including incidents of clear racism with threats to schooling, playing football and honors received.You also mentioned how you were able to get some surprising, mystical and extraordinary gifts. A note after falling asleep, traveling with your wife, Candy going 90 miles an hour in a car earlier in your life. Our dream helped you through a key test while at Yale. In addition, as well as the difficult surgeries and political tax on faith.Dr. Martin Luther King said, trouble will come upon you. Disappointment will rain on your door. Like a tidal wave. If you don't have a deep and patient faith. It ain't gonna make it. How important has faith been in your life? And how has it navigated you through such as these difficult situations into becoming the expert worldwide neurosurgeon that handled conjoined twins and other extraordinarily difficult situations?Ben: I would dare say that I couldn't do any of that without the incredible faith that has brought me through so many trials. I hearken back to The fact that I had a horrible temper and I would just go fly off the handle and want to seek revenge, harm people, regardless of the consequences. It was after such an incident where I tried to stab another teenager with a camping knife that I was locked in the bathroom and I was thinking about my life.I turned things around academically very significantly, but I knew I would never achieve my dream of becoming a doctor with a temper like that. I would end up in jail, reform school, or the grave, and I just said, Lord, I can't control my temper. And there was a Bible there, and I picked it up, and there were all these verses in the book of Proverbs about anger, and also about fools, and it all seemed like they were written about me.For three hours, I prayed and contemplated and read, and it dawned on me during that time, it was always about me, my, and I. Somebody did this to me, they took my thing, I want this. I said, if you learn how to step out of the center of the equation, let it be about somebody else. You won't be angry. That was the last day I had an angry outburst.And I recognized at that point, God was real. He was more than somebody you learned about in church. And it really changed my life. And I began to really depend on him at that point in time. And it's been something that has gotten me through so many trials. When I was a first year medical student.I did poorly on the first set of comprehensive exams, and I was sent to see my counselor who said, You seem like a very intelligent young man. I bet there's a lot you could do outside of medicine. He tried to convince me to drop out of medical school. He said I wasn't cut out for medicine, and I would just torment myself and everybody else, and they could help me get into another discipline.The only thing I'd wanted to do was be a doctor since I was eight years old. I started thinking, what kind of courses have you always done well in, and what kind of courses have you struggled in? And I realized I did very well in courses where I did a lot of reading, and I struggled in courses where I listened to a lot of boring lectures, because I don't get anything out of boring lectures.Nothing at all. And yet, there I was, six to eight hours a day, sitting in boring lectures. So I made an executive decision to skip the boring lectures and to spend that time reading. And the rest of medical school was a snap after that. And some years later when I was back at my medical school as the commencement speaker, I was looking for that counselor ...
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Jun 17 202423 min