Jim Doty is a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford, and the founder and director of the center for compassion and altruism research and education. Doty, who was a student of the Dalai Lama, proves that you can come from a troubled past and still have a successful future. Born with an ill mother and an alcoholic father, Doty was raised on public assistance and had "no mentors."
After going down what could have been a very harmful path, Doty met his first mentor, a magic shop owner's mother. After meeting a 13-year-old Doty, she provided him with the words of wisdom that would slowly begin to change his life, she said, "I really like you. I'm here for six weeks. If you come in here every day, I'll teach you something that I think could change your life."
To Doty, that was the changing of his brain. He suddenly had "unlimited possibilites."
Listen to the beginning of Doty's journey below: