The Three Feet from Gold - Inspirational Story

A lesson learned while reading the book 'Think and Grow Rich'. It was a lazy Saturday night back home when I grabbed the copy that I had bought online almost an year back. The book by Napoleon Hill is a self help book and I should say that I am totally into it just after two chapters. 

Into this first chapter of the book I came across the story of R.U. Darby. The story struck me real hard. I could very well relate to it. I pondered over it for almost a day. It is said that this story is famously known among insurance sellers around the globe. The story of an entrepreneur who  stopped 3 feet from Gold. 

Three feet from Gold inspired Cartoon.

The story stresses on the point how people are broken down by temporary defeat. I could relate to it easily and have been there umpteen times. The story goes like this, Darby and his uncle buys a mining field and tries luck at  digging for a fortune, few weeks after they strike Gold. Excited, they put all their life savings and money borrowed from relatives to buying gold mining equipment. As they expected they did find more gold and by the looks of it, It looked like the biggest gold mine in the Colorado region. Soon disaster struck and they couldn't find any more gold. They dug deeper with hope until it reached a point of desperation. They decided it was time to give up, decided there was no point in going further. At this point came a man who willingly bought the mining land at a cheap price. 

The new property owner however decided he will give it a shot and so he did. He sought expert advice and they found Gold 3 feet from where RU Darby and his uncle had stopped digging. If only they had gone 3 more feet deeper. 

Often many of us, I know one for myself have many times stopped 3 feet from gold. We give up easily. We are often desperate and give up easily, who knows if you push 3 more feet and end up striking a fortune. This lesson is embedded to me right now, I will not easily give up from now. I will push myself a little more. 

I have always had entrepreneurship dreams, this is one lesson every wanna be entrepreneur should read about. The striking part of the story is that Darby learned from his mistakes and later founded one of the biggest insurance companies in the US.