Posted by
Icarus on Friday, November 14, 2008 6:02:55 PM
A political time out. My question today, to anyone who comes by little corner of the blogosphere, is have you stopped three feet from gold?
There is a story in Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich about R. U. Darby's uncle's desire for gold. I cannot suggest this book enough. Here is one of the many inspirational stories that can be found in this classic.
THREE FEET FROM GOLD
One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.
An
uncle of R. U. Darby was caught by the "gold fever" in the gold-rush
days, and went west to DIG AND GROW RICH. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.
After
weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He
needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered
up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg,
Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the "strike." They
got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped. The uncle
and Darby went back to work the mine.
The first car of ore was
mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the
richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the
debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.
Down went
the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something
happened! The vein of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of
the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there! They drilled on,
desperately trying to pick up the vein again--all to no avail.
Finally, they decided to quit.
They
sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took
the train back home. Some "junk" men are dumb, but not this one! He
called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little
calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because
the owners were not familiar with "fault lines." His calculations
showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darbys had stopped drilling! That is exactly where it was found!
The "Junk" man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.
Most
of the money which went into the machinery was procured through the
efforts of R. U. Darby, who was then a very young man. The money came
from his relatives and neighbors, because of their faith in him. He
paid back every dollar of it, although he was years in doing so.
Long afterward, Mr. Darby recouped his loss many times over, when he made the discovery that DESIRE can be transmuted into gold. The discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance.
Remembering
that he lost a huge fortune, because he STOPPED three feet from gold,
Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work, by the simple
method of saying to himself, "I stopped three feet from gold, but I
will never stop because men say 'no' when I ask them to buy insurance."
If you think there is somewhere in your life that you've stopped three feet from gold, and would be willing to talk to someone who might help you find that gold?