Book Review

Greetings Everyone,

I just finished rereading Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential For Excellence, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

I firmly believe that most people are not innately base-minded but products of their environment and of the teaching they received from school, peers, and their social conditioning. Sometimes it is just a matter of reconditioning and reeducating people.

Written by Dr. Ben Carson and Cecil Murphy, Think Big is a follow-up to his bestselling autobiography, Gifted Hands. Dr. Ben Carson is a former neurosurgeon, author, and politician who is currently serving as the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Mostly recognized for being the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins, Dr. Carson headed major divisions at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He credited his success to his humble beginnings, mother, and love for education; particularly his love for reading.

In Think Big, Dr. Carson advises his personal formula for success by showing his readers how they should view problems, evaluate them, and solve them. I’ve read this book 4 times now and each time I feel inspired like it’s my first. His political views aside, Dr. Ben Carson’s story is one that I’ve respected ever since high school. To come from immense poverty but develop the discipline and passion for reading the way he did, which ultimately lead him to become a renowned neurosurgeon at age 33, is something most people have never done. And the influences from his mother as well as her struggle is something that I resonated with on a personal level.

There were a lot of insightful points made in this book, and I would like to leave you with a few that I found interesting.

Dr. Ben Carson’s mother, Sonya Carson, helped her sons develop a love for education by making it mandatory that they read 2 books per week, write a book report on each, and limit their television time to just 2 programs per week. Which is a tip that I will definitely use for my kids, and that’s if they’ll even be allowed to watch television.
The acronym for Think Big is as follows:
- T = Talent: recognize your talents and use them appropriately.
- H = Honest: live by the rule of honesty and you’ll go far.
- I = Insight: commit ourselves to give our best and we’ll come out on top.
- N = Nice: always be nice to others, live by the Golden Rule.
- K = Knowledge: make an attempt to increase your knowledge.
- B = Books: read them, profusely.
- I = In-Depth Knowledge: learn as much about a topic as possible.
- G = God: acknowledge your need for God.
Dr. Ben Carson advised that reading activates and exercises the mind, and it forces the mind to discriminate. From the beginning, readers have to recognize letters printed on the page, make them into words, the words into sentences, and the sentences into concepts. And reading pushes us to use our imagination and makes us more creatively inclined.