Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Miracle Man


We are unlimited beings. We have no ceiling. The capabilities and the talents and the gifts and the power that is within every single individual that is on this planet, is unlimited.


Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith



I have always felt inspired by the story of the Miracle Man. If some of you are wondering who is this Miracle Man, allow me to explicate more on this. Morris GoodMan, was one of the leading life insurance salesmen in the world, a member of The Million Dollar Round Table and Top Of The Table. Morris had success, fame, fortune, and a brand new airplane.

And then things turned upside down. While attempting to land his airplane one afternoon Morris crashed. With his neck broken at C1 and C2, his spinal cord crushed, and every major muscle in his body destroyed. Morris was no longer able to perform any bodily function except to blink his eyes. His injuries were too severe for him to survive. He was as crushed and broken as the worst one can imagine.When he was admitted in the hospital, the doctors believed that he will be confined to bed for remaining of his lifetime and his survival was by itself a miraculous thing. Anyone would have gone by that notion and would have resigned himself to his fate. But not Morris GoodMan.

THE PLANE AFTER CRASH

The only function he could do was to blink his eyes. So he conceived a method to communicate with others with the help of his sister. His sister wrote down the alphabets in a 5,5 matrix and by blinking his eyes he would point to each alphabet and through that make sentences and convey his thoughts. During the months that followed his plane wreak, Goodman became stronger in his mind –and with each passing day, one by one the injuries he received in that accident were healed –defying any medical explanation because he restored health in areas of the body that were believed to be immune to recovery once taking on the types of injuries Morris had sustained. He fought back just as hard and he never wavered or gave up hope and continued to insist that he was going to make a complete recovery.

He made a wish for himself for the upcoming Christmas.He vowed to himself to literally walk out of the hospital on Christmas Day. Morris knew that if he was healing a body so broken and damaged as his own, he could do anything with sheer will and tenacity alone. How could he believe anything else when his hope and faith in God where all he had to reach out to? He had noting but determination and time on his hands and he was sure he could reach his goal no matter what the odds against him dictated.

Day by day, on and on Morris worked with his Physical Therapist and pushed his body beyond its own limits. He would listen to his favorite motivational speaker –Zig Zigler through out the day and he kept his mind clear of any doubt. He was on a mission and he was not going to fail –that was simply not an option for Morris Goodman. Before he knew it December had arrived and he had regained the full use of his voice. his body was no longer in a state of paralysis but moving and mobile –just as he had predicted it would be –and he was breathing on his own again – all without the help of any type of medical gadget.

As his due date for release came closer he was a brand new instrument inside out and he knew he was going to have his Christmas wish fulfilled. As was the vision –Christmas Day arrived and Morris was met with tears of joy by the hospital members who had given so much of their time and support to see this “Miracle Man” reach his goal of walking out the door by his own accord…and that is exactly what he did on December 25th 1981.He walked forward into an unknown future and left behind him an entire hospital staff watching in utter amazement a man no one believed would survive his injures let alone fully recover from each and everyone of them- helped himself right on out the door!

MORRIS GOODMAN

When he met the head surgeon for the last time before leaving the hospital, the head surgeon said "Mr.Morris,, I never thought that you will be walking on your own some day". This is indeed a miracle. for which, Morris replied : "I never even for a moment, thought that i couldnt do it.". No wonder, it became a Miracle and Morris christened the Miracle Man.,.

Today Morris is a highly sought after speaker who travels the world sharing his story with millions of people and teaching his philosophy on goal setting and personal growth and development.

Another notable belief of Morris while he was in hospital was that he had a card board written "SNEOP" in it and he used to see it daily. So what was this SNEOP. It stood for

"SUSCEPTIBLE TO NEGATIVE INFLUENCE OF OTHER PEOPLE".
The interesting thing here was that he was not only fighting the physical impairments he had to battle with that had been left behind after is mid-air disaster –he had to fight the very same doctors who had initially saved his life as well. No matter how much his body repaired itself, they continued to tell him that a full reversal of his injuries was just not possible. He believed he will recover and for once he didn't allow anyone else belief to overlie on his own. So every time he saw the cardboard he used to remind himself of the negative thoughts of other people which might influence him and in turn threaten to wrest control of his mind from him.

So much for our own life, where we allow others beliefs and thoughts to over shadow ours and we began to life someone else life instead of living our own. As Steve Jobs rightly said :

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

2 comments:

augursmiles said...

good one. was there a similar article about some miracle man in your previous post? its all about a persons mindset.

Prashant Sree said...

@ augur: Thanks Augur !! Yes, there was one about Roger Bannister and the four Minute Mile. You have an awesome memory :)