This article is based on a minor mishap that happened to me about a month ago. In the end, I learned some useful lessons. You might find some of these lessons handy in your own life. You will never know unless you read this article! If you hate visits to the dentist, just skip the first half of the article!

Recently, I decided to eat some raw carrots in an attempt to lose weight. I successfully ate several and was left with one large chunk of a very thick carrot. My intuition and common sense warned me not to bite into it.

I did not listen! Far from losing weight, I lost a tooth which broke off near its root. It left a huge and unsightly gap in my upper front row of teeth.

After my initial shock at my stupidity for chewing on a large raw carrot, I realised that dentistry is so advanced these days that the gap could probably be filled without having to wear a plate.

I had had a similar problem some years ago when an equally important front tooth had crumbled as I gripped the blowpipe of a set of bagpipes with my teeth!

My dentist had then skilfully inserted a metal spike into the base of the tooth and crowned the spike so that it looked as good as the original tooth. The crown is still with me and I was able to continue playing the bagpipes for quite a while.

However, I still doubted whether that kind of amazing job could be performed once more. Surely there would be some problem this time. My previous dentist had retired and maybe the current tooth base would be too small for a spike.

Fortunately, my new dentist believed the job could be done if I had root canal treatment first to leave a clear channel into which the spike could be inserted.

I travelled up to London to have the root canal treatment from an expert. I asked him if he thought the tooth could be replaced successfully. He is a master of understatement and has always delivered more than he promised. He stated that you can only try and see what happens.

The root canal treatment went smoothly and was amazingly painless. It cost only 495 - less than my last treatment. I now had to trust my new dentist to finish off the job.

She inserted the spike and cemented on a temporary crown and warned me not to bite into an apple with my front teeth and not to chew gum. I left still not sure if the job had been done well.

The crown fell off half an hour later and my doubts returned. I had not attempted to eat anything and was 'not guilty'. She saw me again almost immediately and used some stronger cement. The crown has stayed on for over 48 hours and I am now a believer!

If a temporary crown with cement on one side of the crown only can last this long, the finished job should be permanent.

What success lessons are here?

Listen to your intuition and to your common sense and take time to think before you act. You will avoid a lot of problems and a lot of expense. Don't bite off more than you can chew!

Believe that even the ugliest looking problem - and a missing front tooth is not a pretty sight - can be fixed. Solutions will appear once you focus on sorting out a problem rather than feeling sorry for yourself.

Believe in the skills of the experts and be willing to pay good money for their services. If necessary sell something to get the money or use a credit card.

You can only try out a plan and see what happens - sage advice from the root canal expert. If you don't act on your plans, you will never know whether they would have worked or not.

Do not lose faith when things appear to go wrong. Give the expert a chance to put right their mistakes. Do the same for yourself.

Cut down your carrots and your problems into small, bite sized chunks that you will find easy to chew on one by one.

If in doubt, steer clear of large raw carrots!

A bonus success lesson came from the fact that I had to travel to the West End of London to get the root canal treatment. This meant time on the train which gave me a chance to read a great book called 'Beyond Positive Thinking' by Dr Robert Anthony.

The book is brilliant. The ideas in it are not always new but they are explained with great clarity. For example, each chapter is full of clear, simple statements like the following:

"The truth is we can have anything we want if we'll give up the belief that we can't have it. It's as simple as that."

"All our experiences have led us to believe certain things about ourselves. Whether these beliefs are true or not really doesn't matter because if we accept them as true then they are true for us."

"Pronounce your limitations vigorously enough and they're yours."

Read his book and you will feel like you are understanding your life much more clearly and can see what you have to do to create the life you want.

I had a similar experience when I first read 'The Midas Method' by Stuart Goldsmith.

I am now quite pleased that I ate that raw carrot! If I had not needed to travel to London, I might have left a great book on the shelf for years before reading it and applying its universal truths to my life.

Never forget that the book you never read might have changed your life from ordinary to extraordinary.

Some months after I first wrote this article, the rebuilt tooth in question is doing fine.

Check out the articles and books by John Watson, Stuart Goldsmith and others at http://www.motivationtoday.com

Any one of these articles and ebooks could change or, at least, improve your life.