Jean-Philippe Daigle

Lessons from the Miracle Man

Presented January 13, 2010

I want to tell you a story about Morris Goodman, known as "The Miracle Man." His story began on March 10, 1981. This day changed his life forever. On this day, Morris crashed an airplane.

He ended up in a hospital completely paralyzed. His spinal cord was crushed; his first and second cervical vertebrae were broken. His swallowing reflex was also lost in the accident. He wasn’t able to drink or eat; his diaphragm had been destroyed too, making it impossible to breathe without being plugged into some sort of machine. All he was able to do is blink his eyes.

You wouldn’t believe that he stood a chance at this point in his life and to be one day back to a normal lifestyle. Everything that is supposed to make his body work normally, to walk, breathe or eat, was not working and unfixable.

His destiny was to stay in that hospital bed for the rest of his life. Nothing could ever make him be who he was again. The experts and his family believed this was his future. He would only be able to function with the help of the service in a hospital. But Morris thought differently.

He was still positive about his destiny. Here is what he was thinking.

"After I having been diagnosed, they thought I would never be a normal person again, but I didn’t. I had this inside force in my mind telling me that one day, I would be again someone with a happy life. The only thing I had to work with in the hospital was my mind, and once you have your mind, you can put things back together again."

He was hooked to a respirator and told that he would never breathe again on his own. They said his diaphragm was destroyed. But a little voice in his mind kept telling him: “Breathe deeply, breathe deeply.” And finally, he was weaned from it. The doctors were at a loss for an explanation. That had never been seen this before in the history of medicine. It was a miracle.

He said, “I would be walking by Christmas,” and he did. He walked out of the hospital on his two feet. Again, doctors said, “it couldn’t be done.” This is where faith comes before science. The power of the mind is unlimited.

This story shows you that anything can be achieved. It demonstrates the unfathomable power and unlimited potential of the human mind. Anything can be done.

I’ll leave you with the words of the Miracle Man: “For people who are sitting out there right now and are hurting, if I wanted to sum up my life and sum up for people what they can do in life, I would sum it up in six words: Man becomes what he thinks about.”