This woman overcame adversity in an amazing way. She escaped her abusive marriage and took the kids away. With a bank loan, a plan drawn up by her eldest son and lots of bricks, she and her family built a home on an acre of land in a suburb of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Using YouTube videos as her guide.
She’s a remarkable woman in many ways. Check out her website. https://carabrookins.com
In a time when rebuilding your life is all about what’s happening in your head, Cara Brookins decided to build something with her hands, too. The single mom with her four kids watched YouTube tutorials to build a 3500 square foot home. By merging the primitive drive to build shelter for her family with the emotional drive to build her kids’ confidence, she proved we all have the strength to build ourselves a better life.
Cara Brookins is a sought after speaker and a best-selling author of both fiction and non-fiction. She is reframing the way people reach for their goals by helping them plan a future so big it will change their perception of themselves. These innovative ideas came from her own difficult experiences. After escaping from domestic violence with her four kids, she decided the only way they would ever build a better life was to take an impossible leap and literally build it with their own hands.
Together, they built a 3500 square foot house from the ground up by watching YouTube tutorials. Mixing concrete by hand in a wheelbarrow, raising walls, and running plumbing and gas lines taught her that a determined human can do practically anything.
Sharing her extreme methods of leaping toward major life change eventually led to Cara’s memoir, Rise, How a House Built a Family, which sold at auction and has been optioned for a major motion picture This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx