Acres of Diamonds, by Russell Conway

Russell Conway was so successful with this speech that he was asked to give it over 5,000 times.

An old African farmer heard about people who had gone off into Africa, discovered diamond mines and become fantastically wealthy.

So he sold up his farm and decided to go off into Africa and crown his life by discovering a diamond mine and becoming fabulously wealthy. He wandered the vast African continent for 12 or 13 years and, finally - tired, broken, broke, alone, sick and exhausted - he threw himself into the ocean and drowned.

Meanwhile back on his farm, the new owner was out watering a mule in a stream that cut across the farm. He found a rock that threw off light in a remarkable fashion. It was later found to be a diamond of inestimable value!

The person who identified the diamond asked the new farmer to take him out to where he had been watering the mule when he found the rock. They went back out and found another diamond...and then another...and then another! In fact, they found that the old farm was literally covered with acres of diamonds.

The old farmer had gone off seeking diamonds somewhere else, without ever looking under his own feet; he did not realise that diamonds didn’t look like diamonds in their rough form. They simply looked like rough rocks, burned fragments and charred remnants of coal.

To bring out it’s very best value, a diamond must be cut, shaped, polished and set.

Our major opportunities in life also come to us like rough diamonds. They say the reason why people miss their major opportunities in life is, in the words of Thomas Edison:

“Most opportunities are disguised in work clothes and look like work.”

Our major opportunities to achieve everything that we want lie right under our own feet. Not only in our own talents and abilities, but also in our own towns, our own industries, our own interests, our own education, our own background and our own connections. Everything that we want, everything that we hoped for is probably very close at hand -but it does not look like a diamond in its rough form. It will require work, planning, preparation and effort. It will require getting down there with our own hands and creating, polishing, buffing and setting.

Don’t think that you have to travel across the country, change industries or go back to school. In setting goals, look right where you are and start where you are right now. Most millionaires become millionaires from the very town in which they grew up. They recognised the opportunities from what was all around them and right under their own feet.