My father was a good, honest man with brilliant plans and ideas, but a poor businessman. Maybe there are some people who shouldn’t get into business, and he was one of them, but he always felt it was the city he was doing business in that had to blame for his unsuccessful forays into making a fortune, so during my childhood we trudged from city to city with him, where he opened up his business and finally in frustration emigrated to the US, while I stayed behind.
Many years later he fell sick and I brought him back and asked him which was the best city for business. He looked at me smiled and said, “Your pot of gold is where you are right now Bob, there was no need for me to have moved around like I did!”
There’s this other very old, famous story of David: David was a very ambitious and proud man, who was desperate to be very rich. To this end he traveled the globe, spending years away from home searching for a gold mine. He knew that once he owned one, his dream of riches would come true.
Unfortunately David ended his days neither rich nor happy. After he died the local condominium developer bought David’s property and started to dig the foundation and what did he find? He found that for all these years, David was sitting right on top of a very large, very rich gold mine!
As you listen to what my father told me at the end of his years or the story of David, do take a look at your own backyard; your present business, your job, do you see gold shining just beneath?
Start digging instead of looking elsewhere!
How often I’ve seen colleagues, friends and acquaintances moving from one venture to another or changing jobs faster than their socks, like gold sifters moving farther and farther upriver, searching endlessly for the elusive gold nuggets, when it was right there, waiting to be dug out at the place where they started. But they don’t, because digging requires effort; you need to dig your heels in and start shoveling, working your muscle, something most aren’t willing to do.
There’s also another lot, who stay on at the same place, and peering with longing across the fields, over the backs of their buffaloes, they whisper, “If only I was born on the other side!”
If only I had a good education. If only my father was rich and had left me something. If only! If only!
And they stand on their mines of gold looking into the distance their whole lives, dreaming fantasies when it’s all there a few feet below.
Look down my friend, instead of looking where you’re going to go next, there’s gold at your feet, roll up your sleeves, start digging..!
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