I love the story of the gold digger provided in Think and Grow Rich. An ambitious young man, passionate about the prospect of gold, discovers gold and marks the area where he initially discovered it. He informs his family of the discovery, and with their financial help, purchases expensive equipment to cultivate the gold and become wealthy beyond measure.
However, when the young many returns to the marked area to extract the gold, he soon realizes that he lost the exact mark of the gold’s location. After many failed attempts at uncovering the gold within the area, he finally relinquishes, sells his equipment for cheap, and moves into the insurance business. Unknown to him at the time, he was only THREE FEET away from claiming the gold that he initially sought. Had he kept digging THREE FEET farther, he would have acquired the wealth of a lifetime. In a life that is a game of inches, he was only 36 inches from lavishness.
This story has several key takeaways. The first takeaway is apparent: When you reach your limits, you have the power to either break through or succumb. This power is completely under your control and separates the truly successful from the almost successful. Purpose, passion, and persistence precipitate success. Clearly the ambitious young man had a purpose in materially increasing his wealth. He was passionate about gold, as revealed in his excitement over his gold prospects and his acquisition of gold digging equipment. However, the young man was not persistent enough in his efforts, which left him THREE FEET short of his passion and purpose. Persistence is a necessary quality that favors those who are of sound mind and will. Persistence is what allows us to turn temporary failure into ultimate success.
The second and third takeaways are not as apparent, simply because I failed to mention a crucial component of the story. When the young man sold his equipment for cheap, he provided the equipment to a shrewd gentleman who later solicited the insight of subject matter experts as to the probable existence and location of gold within the area. Upon administering the assistance of these experts, the gentleman easily located and extracted the gold that was only THREE FEET away from the young man’s prior efforts. The gentleman had successfully planned his conquest by intelligently acquiring equipment at a discount and relying on experts to better channel his tailored pursuits to both finding and acquiring the gold. Where the young man failed to plan, and therefore planned to fail, the gentleman leveraged a sound plan and appropriate resources (in terms of both the equipment and the experts’ advice) to achieve his goal. The gentleman’s persistence in planning and executing the plan proved superior to the young man’s temporary persistence in digging aimlessly.
The second key takeaway is now apparent: Success, and failure, are determined less by your circumstance and more by your perception of your circumstance. Where the young man saw failure in securing gold quickly, the gentleman saw both opportunity and success in leveraging external resources for internal fulfillment. Similarly, the third key takeaway is now apparent: Proper planning prevents poor performance. Think and Grow Rich identifies planning as the bridge between desire (passion) and committed action (persistence/disciplined effort). Planning will allow you to better align your pursuits with your life’s mission, and ensures that you more effectively match your goals with adequate resources, time, and effort.
The fourth takeaway is also intentionally unapparent. I forgot another part of the story! Shame on me. Once the gold digger gave up on his passion and sold off his equipment, he later found out that the recipient of his equipment had successfully struck gold THREE FEET from his stopping point. In response to this news, did the gold digger learn anything from his own failure?
Flash forward in time, and the gold digger transforms himself into an insurance salesman. He faces a significant number of emphatic “NO” responses from potential customers. Every “NO” he hears transports the insurance salesman to the precise moment he gave up on his previous gold adventure. THREE FEET away. He refuses to stop THREE FEET short with his sales efforts. Every objection, every question, every “NO” is met with a determined, receptive, and service-minded insurance salesman who flips many initial rejections into successful sales conversions. In fact, the insurance salesman is so determined, so receptive, and so service-minded that he consistently sells unprecedented levels of insurance to large volumes of customers.
The fourth takeaway is now transparent, and is parallel with the first takeaway: When you reach failure, you have the power to either let it define you or to redefine the failure. If the salesman had let his prior failure in gold digging define him and his purpose, he would have ultimately fallen short of his purpose in materially increasing his wealth. Rather, he redefined the failure as a learning experience; from his failure, the salesman committed himself to digging as deep as he could with potential customers. He redefined his passion from gold digging to serving others through the benefits of insurance. Most importantly, he now became consistently PERSISTENT in overcoming objections and going the extra THREE FEET to accommodate his customers’ needs. He learned the value of persistence and applied it to his insurance work, which allowed him to accomplish his overarching purpose to materially increase his wealth.
Such a simple story drives true power in its lessons on perspective, attitude, and choice. When you reach your limits, break through them! Your perception of your circumstance, as opposed to your circumstance itself, determines your success. Connect your desire with your persistence, as evidenced in your disciplined efforts, by engaging in intentional planning. Don’t define yourself by your failures; rather, transform your failures, or others’ failures, into learning opportunities that drive your purpose, passion, and persistence. Just like the gold digger turned into a successful salesman. Just like the gentleman acquired the gold digger’s equipment and solicited expert advice before successfully proceeding with his gold extraction.
You never know your life’s THREE FEET until you look back on your life and reflect on where you fell just short of success. Every time you fail, every time you struggle, every time you want to quit … remember that you may only be THREE FEET away from your gold, your next sale, or your impending breakthrough. Keep digging until you reach your gold.
