Acres of Diamonds;

Russell Conwell, born in 1843, was a lawyer, then a newspaper editor and then a minister. One day, some young men came to Dr. Conwell asking him to teach them; Conwell liked the idea so much, that he decided to found a university accepting those from all walks of life. Almost singlehandedly, Dr. Conwell raised millions of dollars and founded Temple University. He raised that money largely on a speaking circuit telling the story of “Acres of Diamonds”.

Acres of Diamonds; this is a story of an African Farmer who became obsessed with the idea of striking it rich prospecting a diamond mine. The farmer sold his farm, and wandered the country trying to find said diamonds, and although he travelled far and wide, he never found any diamonds. After a few years of searching, the farmer threw himself into the river and drowned himself.

Around the same time, the man who bought the farm found a small stone in a stream that cut through the property, and that stone was a diamond. That man looked far and wide on his property, and saw to it that the farm became one of the world’s richest diamond mines.

The first farmer had owned literally acres of diamonds, but had sold them to look elsewhere. If he had spent the time to look for diamonds in the rough state, and then looked under his own feet, he would have found the riches he was looking for.

Dr. Conwell told this story because it illustrates something many of us go through. We are all surrounded by opportunity in our present work, but many of us do not take the time to learn how to find those opportunities. We are all looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but we don’t stay with the rainbow long enough to find it.

No matter what your goal is, perhaps the way to it is the road you are already on. Remember that the grass is always greener. No matter what your business is, you are the manager of yourself. If there is no opportunity in a field, it is up to you to make more opportunity; opportunity does not present itself without someone seeking it.

If you put a pumpkin in a bottle when it is still very small and on the vine, it will grow to fill the bottle. But once it reaches that size, it will cease to grow. Be careful that your current attitude isn’t a bottle limiting your growth, and recognize that your growth isn’t limited by the company, or your past, but by you.

See your work as an opportunity for growth and development, and prepare for opportunities each and every day. It takes imagination to see diamonds in the rough, or iron ore as a raw material to be extracted from a rock and turned into a horseshoe. It takes creativity to see opportunity where others do not, and you have the capacity to find those opportunities.