Acres of Diamonds
In the year 1843, a man was born who was to have a profound effect upon millions of people. His name was Russell Herman Conwell. He became a lawyer, then a newspaper editor, and finally a minister. It was during his church career that an incident occurred that was to change his life and the lives of countless others.
One day a group of young people came to Dr. Conwell at his church and asked him if he’d be willing to instruct them in college courses; they all wanted a college education but lacked the money to pay for it. He told them to let him think about it and come back in a few days.
After they left, an idea began to form in Dr. Conwell’s mind. He asked himself, "Why couldn’t there be a college for poor but deserving young people?" And before very long the idea consumed him. Why not, indeed. It was a project worthy of 100% dedication, complete commitment.
And almost single-handedly, Dr. Conwell raised several million dollars, with which he founded Temple University, today one of the country’s leading schools.
He raised the money by giving more than 6000 lectures all over the country, and in each one of them he told a story which he called "Acres of Diamonds." It was true story which had affected him very deeply and had the same effect on his audiences. The money he needed to build the college came pouring in.
The story was of an African farmer who heard tales of other farmers who had made millions discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. So he sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems which brought such high prices in the markets of the world. Finally, the story goes, worn out and in a fit of despondency he threw himself into a river and drowned.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch – or farm in this case – the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing the small stream on the property when suddenly there was a bright flash of blue and red light from the stream bottom. He bent down, picked up the stone – it was a good-sized stone – and, admiring it, later he put it on his fireplace mantle as an interesting curiosity.
Several weeks later a visitor picked up the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand, and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he’d found. When the farmer said no, that he thought it was a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered.
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Well, the farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that his creek was full of such stones, not as large perhaps as the one on the mantle but, well, they were sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom.
Needless to say, the farm that the first farmer had sold so that he might find a diamond mine turned out to be the most productive diamond mine on the entire African continent.
The first farmer had owned, free and clear, acres of diamonds, but had sold them for practically nothing in order to look for them elsewhere.
Well, the moral is clear. If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state and, since he already owned a piece of the African continent, to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere all of his wildest dreams would have come true.
Now the thing about this story that so profoundly affected Dr. Conwell and subsequently millions of others, was the idea that each of us is at this moment standing in the middle of his or her own acres of diamonds.
If we only had the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we are now engaged, to explore ourselves, we’d usually find the riches we seek, whether they be financial or intangible or both.
Before we go running off to what we think are greener pastures, let’s make sure that our own is not just as green or perhaps even greener. It’s been said that if the other guy’s pasture appears to be greener than ours, it’s quite possible that it’s getting better care. Besides, while we’re looking at other pastures, other people are looking at ours.
There are few things more pitiable in my mind than the person who wastes his life running from one thing or another, forever looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and never staying with one thing long enough to find it. No matter what your goal may be, perhaps the road to it can be found in the very thing you’re now doing.
It wasn’t until he was completely paralyzed by polio and forced to reach into the rich resources of his mind, that a courageous farmer got the idea of producing exceptionally good meat products on his farm. From that idea one of the country’s most successful meat packing companies was born. His farm contained acres of diamonds too; he’d just never had to dig for them before.
Your mind is your richest resource. Let it thoroughly explore the possibilities lurking in what you’re presently doing before turning to something new. I say that because there were probably good reasons for your having chosen your present work in the beginning. If there weren’t, and if you’re unhappy in the field you’re in, well then perhaps it’s time for some serious exploration.
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Dr. Conwell’s life is a living example of a person’s willingness to change once one’s own pasture has been thoroughly explored. I said that Dr. Conwell began as a lawyer, and then later changed to become a newspaper editor before he found his true calling as a minister and the founder of a great university.
Every kind of work has such opportunity lurking within it. The opportunities are there now, clamoring to be noticed, but they cannot speak or print signs for us to read. Our part of the bargain is to look at our work with new eyes, with the eyes of creation. Tiehard de Chardin said, "It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our abilities do not exist. We are collaborators in creation.
Story of man in Arizona starting with a small gas station. One day, sitting in his office and looking out of the window watching his assistant pump gas for a customer, he watched the customer standing about waiting for his tank to be filled. It dawned upon him that that man had money in his pockets and that there were things he needed and wanted and would pay for if they were conveniently placed and displayed where he could see them.
So he began adding things – fishing tackle, then fishing licenses, hunting and camping equipment, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, hunting licenses. He found an excellent line of aluminum fishing boats, and trailers. He began buying up the contiguous property around him, and added auto parts and refreshments. He’d always carried soft drinks and candy but now he added an excellent line of chocolates in a refrigerated case. Before long, he sold more chocolates than anyone else in the state.
He carried thousands of things his customers could buy while waiting for their cars to be serviced. All the products he sold also almost guaranteed that most of the gas customers in town would come to his station. He sold more gas. He began cashing checks on Fridays, and the bonanza grew and grew. It all started with a man with a human brain watching a customer standing around with money in his pockets and nothing to spend it on. Others would have lived and died with the small service station. The man saw the diamonds – serve the customer, serve the customer better than anyone else is serving the customer.
Many service station owners on seeing a wealthy customer drive in might say to themselves, "I ought to be in his business." Not so, there’s just as much opportunity in one business as another, if we’ll only stop playing copycat with each other and begin to think creatively, begin to think in new directions. It’s there, believe me. And it’s our job to find it.
Take the time to stand off and look at your work as a stranger might, and ask, "Why does he do it that way? Has he noticed how it might be capitalized upon, or multiplied?" If you’re happy with things as they are, then by all means keep them that way. But there’s great fun finding diamonds hidden in ourselves and in our work. We never get bored or blasé or find ourselves in a rut. A rut, we’re reminded, I nothing more than a grave with the ends kicked out.
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You might also ask yourself, "How good am I at what I am presently doing?" Do you know all there is to know about your work? Would you call yourself a first-class professional at your work? How would your work stand up against the work of others in your line? The educator and author J. B. Matthews wrote: "Unless a person has trained himself for his chance, his chance will only make him ridiculous.
The first thing we need to do to become a diamond miner is to break away from the crowd and quit assuming that because people in the millions are living that way it must be the best way. It is not the best way. It’s the average way. The people going the best way are way out in front. They’re so far ahead of the crowd you can’t even see their dust anymore. They’re the people who live and work on the leading edge, the cutting edge, and they mark the way for all the rest.
We have a choice to make, you and I. It takes imagination, a curious imagination to realize that diamonds don’t look like cut and polished gemstones in their rough state, nor does a pile of iron ore look like stainless steel.
To prospect your own acres of diamonds, develop a faculty we might call intelligent objectivity, the faculty to stand off and look at your work as a person from Mars might look at it, within the framework of what industry or what profession does your job fall.
Do you know all you can about your profession or industry? Is it time for a refreshing change of some kind? How can the customer be given a better break? Each morning ask yourself, "How can I increase my service today? There are rare and marketable diamonds lurking all round me. Have I been looking for them, examining every facet of my work or industry or profession in which it has its life?
There are better ways to do what I am doing. What are they? How will my work be performed twenty years from now? Everything in the world is in a state of evolution and improvement. How can I do what will eventually be done anyway now?
Sure there’s risk involve – that’s good for us.
Lloyd C. Douglas, author of the Robe and other classics, wrote an article titled "Escape." In that article he asked the rhetorical question, "Who among us at some time has not toyed briefly with the temptation to run away? If all the people who have given that idea the temporary hospitality of their imagination were to have acted upon it, few would be living at their present addresses. And of the small minority who did carry the impulse into effect, it’s doubtful if many of them disengaged themselves as completely as they had hoped from the problems that hurled them forth. More often than otherwise, it may be surmised, they packed up their troubles in their old kitbags and took them along."
The point of the article was simply: Don’t try to run away from your troubles, overcome them. Prevail, right where you are. What we’re really after is not escape from our trials
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and tribulations but a triumph over them. And one of the best ways to accomplish that is to get on course and stay there.
Restate and reaffirm your goal, the state in life you want to reach. See it clearly in your mind’s eye, just as you can envision the airport in Los Angeles when you board your plane in New York.
Or like a ship in a great storm, just keep your heading and your engines running. The storm will pass, although sometimes it seems as if it never will, and one bright morning you’ll find yourself passing the harbor light. Then you can give a big sigh, rest awhile, and almost before you know it you find your eyes turning seaward again. You’ll find a new harbor you’d like to visit, a new voyage upon which to embark. And once again you’ll set out.
We escape from problems not by running away from them, but by overcoming them. And then we start looking around for a new set of problems to overcome.
Start taking an hour a day with a legal pad, and dissect your work. Look at its constituent parts. There’s opportunity there. That’s your acres of diamonds.
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