Lessons From Les Brown – Attitude is the Key

Les Brown is one of my favorite speakers who always has a great message, but I find it’s his actions that can teach us even more.  It’s not just that he was an adopted orphan who was labeled educationally mentally retarded as a youngster, he went on to become a state senator and after that, one of the most successful professional speakers in the country.  it’s how he has handled his personal health issues that I want to address here.  Approximately ten years ago, Les was diagnosed with prostate cancer that was so advanced, that the best doctors in the most esteemed hospitals in the country, basically told him there wasn’t much that could be done.  The outcome was inevitable.  Get your things in order.  Today, Les is alive and well.  He has made a full recovery.  What might we learn from this? 

Les had already learned from his youth not to base his future on what others thought.  Obviously, the diagnosis of his mental capabilities was incorrect.  When he learned to believe in himself and listened only to others who had faith in him, he knew there were no limits to his potential.  He carried that same attitude over to his health.  While his diagnosis was correct, he knew the prognosis based on impossibility thinking was not set in stone.  He quit listening to the “experts.”  He searched and found people who had recovered from the same condition and he asked them what they did.  He then did the same things and got the same results.

Why buy into what can’t be done?  If a condition is called incurable it only means that the treatments being utilized are ineffective.  The fact is that if only one person has recovered from a label or illness, it is possible for others.  That includes you and me. 

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