Ben's mother tells her eight-year-old son that his father is leaving the family and will not return.

Ben hears a church sermon about a missionary doctor and decides he wants to become a doctor himself.

Ben fails every subject in fifth grade after returning to Detroit, becoming the target of his classmates' ridicule.

Sonya Carson bans most television watching and requires her sons to read two library books per week.

Ben rises to the top of his class by seventh grade and earns the respect of his peers.

Ben pulls a camping knife on his friend during a radio argument, but the blade snaps on a belt buckle.

Ben prays to God to free him from his violent temper and feels an immediate and lasting change.

With only ten dollars to his name, Ben applies to a single college, choosing Yale University.

Ben dreams of a shadowy figure solving chemistry problems and wakes to find the dream matches his final exam.

After a near-fatal car accident, Ben and Candy share their first kiss and commit to each other.

Ben is unanimously approved to become Johns Hopkins' youngest-ever director of pediatric neurosurgery at age thirty-three.

Carson performs a groundbreaking hemispherectomy on young Maranda, who speaks immediately after waking from surgery.

Carson leads a seventy-member surgical team in the first successful separation of craniopagus twins joined at the back of the skull.

Both separated twins wake from their medically-induced coma and are confirmed to have their sight intact.

Ben and Candy announce plans for the THINK BIG scholarship program to help economically challenged young people.

Ben Carson's story begins when his father abandons the family, leaving his mother to raise two sons alone in poverty. Guided by his mother's determination and a childhood religious experience that inspires him to become a doctor, Ben transforms from a failing fifth-grader into a top student. After overcoming a violent temper through prayer, he earns a place at Yale, where a miraculous dream saves him from failing chemistry and losing his medical dream entirely. He builds a committed relationship with Candy, goes on to become Johns Hopkins' youngest-ever director of pediatric neurosurgery, and leads the first successful separation of craniopagus twins joined at the back of the skull. He closes his memoir by launching the THINK BIG program to give disadvantaged young people the same chances he had to fight to create for himself.

The headline moments of Ben Carson's journey from poverty to pioneering neurosurgeon.

Sonya checks herself into a mental institution and tells her sons she is going to visit relatives.

Unable to keep the Detroit home, Sonya moves her sons to Boston to live with her older sister.

Ben receives free glasses through a school eye exam, and his grades begin to improve immediately.

Older white boys on a train confront Ben and threaten to kill him if he attends the white school again.

A teacher awards Ben the highest academic certificate but berates the white students for letting a Black classmate win it.

Ben caves to peer pressure, prioritizing fashionable clothes and socializing over school, and his grades drop to Cs.

Curtis physically steps in and prevents Ben from punching their mother during a heated argument over clothing.

A woman named Mary Thomas introduces Sonya Carson to the Seventh-day Adventist faith while Sonya is hospitalized.

Ben joins the high school ROTC program and quickly rises through the ranks to become a top leader.

Ben is named city executive officer and offered a full scholarship to West Point, which he declines.

Walking across the Yale campus with no money, Ben finds a ten-dollar bill lying on the ground.

Ben and Candy marry several months after Candy's graduation from Yale University.

Carson performs a solo lobectomy on a comatose patient while all the senior faculty are away at a conference.

Ben and Candy arrive in Western Australia, where the Seventh-day Adventist community gives them a warm welcome.

After the twin separation surgery, Patrick aspirates food and suffers brain damage from a respiratory arrest.

Behind Ben Carson's landmark achievements lies a series of pivotal secondary experiences that shaped his character and path. His mother's quiet battles with mental illness and financial hardship push the family from Detroit to Boston and back, while encounters with racial prejudice at school and in the neighborhood test Ben's resolve. Peer pressure briefly derails his academic progress, and his older brother Curtis plays a crucial role in preventing Ben from making an irreversible mistake during a moment of rage. At Yale, small moments of providence keep Ben afloat financially, and after marrying Candy, his surgical career builds through increasingly bold procedures, including performing a solo brain operation with no faculty present. The pool ends with the aftermath of the twin separation surgery, when one of the twins suffers unexpected brain damage from a sudden and devastating respiratory complication.

The supporting experiences and formative moments behind Carson's rise.

Ben and Curtis learn that their father had secretly maintained a second wife and family throughout their childhood.

Sonya confronts a school counselor to have Curtis transferred from the vocational track into the college preparatory program.

Ben scores zero on a thirty-problem math test, and a classmate publicly announces his failure in front of the class.

Twelve-year-old Ben chooses to be rebaptized, declaring that he did not fully understand his commitment at age eight.

Ben hits a classmate in the forehead with a combination lock during a confrontation by the school lockers.

Ben hurls a large rock at a neighbor who threw a harmless stone at him, breaking the boy's nose and glasses.

Ben is the last student remaining during a hoax psychology exam, and the professor awards him ten dollars for his honesty.

Ben discovers a new technique to locate the foramen ovale during his neurology rotation and earns his professors' praise.

Overhearing that the Michigan neurosurgery chairman is leaving, Ben decides to apply to Johns Hopkins for his residency instead.

At his Johns Hopkins interview, Ben and the director spend an hour discussing classical music, sealing his acceptance.

Ben and Candy's first son is born in Western Australia, far from family and far from home.

Carson performs a hemispherectomy on teenager Denise despite strong opposition from colleagues who believe she cannot survive the surgery.

Carson's passport, stolen in a home burglary, is unexpectedly recovered just in time for his planned trip to Germany.

During the twin separation surgery, the blood supply runs dangerously low and surgical team members volunteer their own blood.

Ben resolves to limit his surgery schedule and commit to being present for his sons, unlike his own absent father.

The events in this pool trace the specific moments of revelation and decision that transformed Ben Carson into the surgeon and man he became. From learning the truth about his father's double life to choosing to be rebaptized with genuine understanding, Carson's early years are defined by hard-won self-knowledge. His violent temper erupts in a series of escalating incidents before a knife attack on a friend finally forces him to confront who he is becoming. At Yale and at Johns Hopkins, he makes discoveries — a new surgical technique, a shared love of classical music — that quietly but decisively redirect his career. His first son is born abroad in Western Australia, and back at Johns Hopkins he defies colleagues to save patients others had abandoned. By the memoir's close, Carson makes the most personal commitment of all: to be the present father his own father never was.

The key discoveries, moral tests, and defining decisions that shaped Carson's character.