Are You Three Feet from Gold?
March, the month of St. Patrick’s Day, often reminds us of leprechauns, luck, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But what if the real gold is much closer than we think—and not luck, but perseverance, is what it takes to find it?
There’s a legendary story from Napoleon Hill’s classic book Think and Grow Rich that captures this idea perfectly.
The Story of R.U. Darby and the Gold Mine
One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when faced with temporary defeat. R.U. Darby’s uncle was overtaken by gold fever during the Colorado gold rush. He staked a claim, dug tirelessly, and finally struck gold.
He covered the mine, returned home to raise money for machinery, and came back with Darby to begin extraction. The first car of ore proved their find was rich—just a few more shipments would cover the cost of the equipment, and then the profits would roll in.
But suddenly, the vein disappeared. They drilled desperately, but nothing. Discouraged, they sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars and gave up.
Here’s the twist: the junk man hired a mining engineer, who discovered the vein had simply shifted due to a fault line. It was—wait for it—just three feet from where Darby had stopped drilling.
The Real Gold Was the Lesson
The junk man became a millionaire. But Darby didn’t walk away empty-handed. That failure taught him a priceless lesson about persistence. Later, he became a top life insurance salesman, selling over a million dollars in policies annually—because he refused to quit just because someone said “no.”
Temporary defeat is not failure. Failure is only real when we stop. The most successful people in history often succeeded just beyond the point where most others gave up.
So, when you feel like success is slipping away—hang on. You might be just three feet from the gold.
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