Confessions of a Home-based Business Entrepreneur

This came up on the forums in a thread on persistence and not giving up in your business. It’s a story I remember reading in Napolean Hill’s excellent Think and Grow Rich.

When people are stressed during the holidays and worrying about their finances, I think it’s a good reminder to keep our business efforts in perspective. Persistence pays off. The following story “Three Feet From Gold” is a good reminder…

— story—

“There was a man who left home to search for a gold mine. He went into the hills and discovered a very rich vein of ore. He had the gold analyzed to confirm his discovery, and, sure enough, he had unearthed one of the purest veins of gold ever discovered. The man returned home to tell his friends and relatives so that he could borrow the necessary funds to cultivate the mine. He raised the necessary capital and returned to the mine to cultivate his fortune.

“The gold began to flow as easily as water, and soon the man had recouped approximately half of his original investment. Then, without warning, the vein ended. The man dug furiously but could not recapture the vein. Finally, he gave up, sold the mine and mining equipment to a junk dealer for scrap, and returned home, broke and a failure.

“Before scrapping the equipment, the junk dealer decided to hire a mining expert to study the mine. The expert, upon a detailed survey of the land, revealed that the vein had not dried up but rather shifted three feet to the left because of a fault in the earth. He advised that if the junk dealer were to continue digging in the new direction, he would soon recapture the vein and become fabulously wealthy.

“The junk dealer acted on the advice of his mining expert, went on to retap the vein of ore, and became one of the richest people in the United States. Meanwhile, the original miner had to live the remainder of his days with the knowledge that he stopped ‘just three feet short’ of the gold.”

—–

When finances are looming and your business just doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. This is not the time to quit. This is the time to re-evalute, and if you determine you need to shift your efforts in your business, DO IT!

Take the attitude that you may be only “three feet from gold.” Don’t give up.

Heidi

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Things a Home Business Owner Should Know. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.