THIS WEEKS THOUGHT - Acres of Diamonds - 7th July 2007
Reading Time 2 minute 22 seconds
For a Podcast of this thought please click here
This is a great story that Brian Tracy pointed me towards. The story was first told a hundred years ago but is still as meaningful today as it ever was.
"There was an old African farmer who had done very well in life, one day he became very excited on hearing that a number of people had gone off in search of Diamond mine; and on finding one became fabulously rich. So he decided to crown his life by going off in search of a Diamonds mine and become fabulously rich.
He searched the huge African continent for 13 years but finally broken alone, sick and tired he threw himself into the ocean and drowned.
Good to Great - Jim Collins 7 Habits - Stephen Covey Discover you Strengths - M Buckingham Richard Branson's Auto biography Brilliant Memory - Dominic O'Brien Think & Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill Freakonomics - Stephen Levitt Getting Things Done - David Allen The Machine That Changed the World Watching the English - Kate Fox
Archives
3 Blind Men & An Elephant
Someone Everyone Anyone
No-one
12 Questions to
High Performance
The Bee Can't Fly but No-one told the
bee
The Maverick Mindset of
Baseball
Three Men and a Boat
Stop
Two Cannibals & a Beautiful Girl
The Meaning of Life
What was your name again?
Two Frogs
Is Common Sense Possible
An Architects Vision
Does Edison Turn Your Light On
Other books and CDs I've mentioned can be found here
There are loads of great audio programs at Nightingale Conant's ,web site here,
Mean while back at his old farm the new farmer one day was out watering a mule in a stream and he found a rock which threw off light in a remarkable fashion. He took the rock to a friend who took him to an expert. This expert identified it as a diamond of immeasurable value. The expert asked “where did you find this” So the farmer took him to where he had found it and low and behold he found another, and then another and then another. Soon he realised that the whole farm was literally covered in acres of diamonds.
The old farmer had gone off looking for diamonds somewhere else without ever looking under his own feet. The reason he didn’t realise that the diamonds were literally under his feet was that diamonds don’t look like diamonds in there rough form, indeed they just look like rough rock, burnt fragments and chapped remnants of coal. Indeed for diamonds to become diamonds as we know it they must be cut shaped and polished"
Reflecting on the story I wondered if I capitalised on the resources and contacts I already have, maybe this would help me find my rough diamonds of opportunity. Then by developing skills I already have maybe I can shape those rough diamonds of opportunity and polish them into my own sparkling diamonds of achievement.
This story has so many great messages but the one the I go away with, is a happy realisation that I don’t need to change everything in my life, because most likely everything I want is right under my feet and all I need to do is look.
Enjoy looking for your diamonds, till next week
David Gardner
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