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Dr. Ben Carson speaks to a crowd at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Orem.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Dr. Ben Carson speaks to a crowd at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Orem.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Dr. Ben Carson speaks to a crowd at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Orem.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Dr. Ben Carson speaks to a crowd at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Orem.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Dr. Ben Carson was already scheduled to speak at the Herbert Institute of Public Policy at Utah Valley University when Charlie Kirk was assassinated on campus on Sept. 10.

After the tragedy, Carson said he received a phone call from someone at UVU inquiring if he was afraid to come to the school.

“Of course not,” Carson said. “Fear is not a part of my vocabulary.”

The former surgeon, presidential candidate and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development stayed true to his word Wednesday morning, addressing a crowd inside the Ragan Theater on UVU’s campus nearly two months after Kirk’s death.

He called the assassination a “devastating” incident that caused grief and anger, and focused his message on how people can overcome anger and act with civility.

“You can take the most radical left-wing person and the most radical right-wing person in this country and they will agree on 80% of things,” Carson said. “It’s that 20% they don’t agree on that we’ve allowed to be massaged into a template of hatred and division. That’s what we don’t need to do.

“We (need to) sit down at a table, put the facts in the middle of the table and discuss what we need to talk about. We should start with the 80% of stuff we agree on, establish a relationship, and then from there we can talk about our differences and why we feel the way we do.”

To do that, Carson said, requires being a calm and reasonable person. He spoke on experiences from his own life that he believes helped him achieve a composed demeanor.

When he was a 14-year-old boy living in Detroit, Carson said he could get very upset. He recalled a time another boy angered him, and he responded by trying to stab the boy in the abdomen with a large camping knife. The blade struck a large metal belt buckle on his clothing, saving him.

“Of course, he fled in terror, but I was more terrified, recognizing that I was trying to kill somebody over nothing,” Carson said. “That was my reaction. And I locked myself in the bathroom and I just started thinking about my life.”

Realizing he could not reach his dreams of being a doctor if he continued down such a path, he said he prayed to God to help him control his temper, and read several verses in Proverbs.

“‘Mightier is the man who can control his temper than the man who can conquer a city,'” Carson said, referencing Proverbs 16:32.

He said he came to the realization that his own selfishness was the root of his anger, and that once he began thinking about other people over himself, his problem was solved.

“That was my last angry outburst. Never had another one since that day,” Carson said. “And some people say, ‘You just learned how to cover it up. You’re still seething underneath.’ That’s not true. Because when God fixes a problem, he doesn’t do a paint job, he fixes it from the inside.”

Speaking to an audience that included students from American Heritage School, Carson also spoke on his path to academic and career success, and what he had to set aside to achieve it.

He said that growing up, he and everyone else in his life thought he was stupid — except for his mother — and that he received poor grades in school.

Carson said once he started reading, his whole world opened up as he learned of plants, animals and rocks, and read biographies of successful professionals.

Through his readings, he said he realized the person who had the most do to do with the trajectory of his life was himself.

“I stopped listening to all the naysayers, the people who are saying ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that, the society is against you,'” he said. “I just threw all that stuff in the garbage. I started reading everything I could get my hands on, and in the space of a year and a half, I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class.”

Despite his newfound confidence, Carson said he wasn’t immune to difficulties and anxiety going forward — from experiencing racism to nearly flunking chemistry his freshman year at Yale.

But he had learned to put aside his anger and self doubt, and that propelled him forward.

“If you can learn the lesson of humility, you’ll be far ahead in life,” he said. “Learn who’s really responsible, and it gives you the right kind of attitude. It helps you to deal with all the anxieties, the anger, the grief — you can put those things aside and recognize that there is another force that is greater.”