Three Feet Away

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
-Thomas Edison

In his book “Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill tells the story of R. U. Darby. He went West in order to strike it rich by mining for gold. He found a spot with promise and staked his claim. He borrowed money from friends and family and purchased the necessary equipment and went to work. After some months of work with no results, Mr. Darby gave up. He sold his stake and the equipment for pennies on the dollar.

The company that bought it from him had an engineer look at the site and the engineer came back with “you are 3 feet away from a large vein of gold”. They went to work and sure enough, within 3 feet they had found gold (and lots of it).

That alone would make for a great story. But it doesn’t end there.

Instead of forever lamenting how close he was to greatness, Mr. Darby learned his lesson and let it propel him to greatness in another field. Mr. Darby became a successful insurance sales person. He attributed his success to knowing that he was never going to stop again when he was “3 feet away”. He wouldn’t stop working when it became hard, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and wouldn’t take the easy way out.

Ever been “3 feet away” in your life?

Ever done well on a diet for a while only to give up right before the real benefits started to appear?

Ever exercised consistently for a couple of weeks/months only to give up right before you really started to see results?

Ever read books instead of watching TV for a couple of weeks only to go back to your regularly scheduled programming?

Today is the day to push through. Today is the day to mine that last 3 feet. Today is the day to start a new life changing habit.

At Mavidea, we have 3 feet to go to get to $1.56 million. Might seem like a lot further than that. Might look like it is time to give up on this gold mine. Might look like we have some tough digging ahead.

We ARE 3 feet away. Just need to take one last deep breath and push through to the end of the year.

Jake