How To Fail Without Really Trying
Thomas Edison, with whom Edwin C. Barnes was so determined to work, once said that “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
A case in point is cited in Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”. I am going to repeat the story almost verbatim (with apologies for dated and stereotypical phrasing) because Mr. Hill tells it so succintly.
It seems there was a man who “was caught by the ‘gold fever’ in the gold-rush days” of the late eighteen-forties. This fellow went west to DIG AND GROW RICH. “He staked a claim and went to work with a pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.”
There’s Gold In Them There Mountains!
“After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the ‘strike’. They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped.”
The man and his young nephew, R. U. Darby, went back to work the mine. “The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved that they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.”
All That Glitters Is Not…
“Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened! The vein of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there! They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again – all to no avail.
“Finally, they decided to QUIT.
“They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars and took the train back home. Some ‘junk men are dumb, but not this one! He called in a mining engineer to look and the mine and do a little calculating.”
The engineer determined that Darby and his uncle had failed simply because they weren’t familiar with ‘fault lines’. According to his calculations, the vein of ore would be found just THREE FEET from where the Darbys had given up and stopped digging.
“The ‘Junk’ man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.
The Rest of the Story
But that isn’t the end of the story for young R.U. Darby. Having earned his degree from the “University of Hard Knocks”, young Darby went to work for his uncle who “operated a large farm on which a number of colored sharecrop farmers lived.” One day, the door of the mill opened while they were grinding wheat and “a small colored child, the daughter of a tenant, walked in and took her place near the door.
“The uncle looked up, saw the child, and barked at her roughly, ‘what do you want?’
“Meekly, the child replied, ‘My mammy say send her fifty cents.’
“‘I’ll not do it,’ the uncle retorted, ‘Now you run on home.’
“‘Yas sah,’ the child replied. But she did not move.
“The uncle went ahead with his work, so busily engaged that he did not pay enough attention to the child to observe that she did not leave. When he looked up and saw her still standing there, he yelled at her, ‘I told you to go on home! Now go, or I’ll take a switch to you.’
“The little girl said ‘yah sah,’ but she did not budge an inch.”
“Never Give In” – Winston Churchill
“The uncle dropped a sack of grain he was about to pour into the mill hopper, picked up a barrel stave, and started toward the child with an expression on his face that indicated trouble.
“Darby held his breath. He was certain he was about to witness a murder. He knew his uncle had a fierce temper. He knew that colored children were not supposed to defy white people in that part of the country.
“When the uncle reached the spot where the child was standing, she quickly stepped forward one step, looked up into his eyes, and screamed at the top of her shrill voice, ‘MY MAMMY’S GOTTA HAVE THAT FIFTY CENTS!’
“The uncle stopped, looked at her for a minute, then slowly laid the barrel stave on the floor, put his hand in his pocket, took out half a dollar, and gave it to her.
“The child took the money and slowly backed toward the door, never taking her eyes off the man whom she had just conquered.”
Don’t Take “No” For An Answer
R.U. Darby went on to make a fortune selling life insurance. “Every time a prospect tried to bow me out, without buying, I saw that child standing there in the old mill, her big eyes glaring in defiance, and I said to myself ‘I’ve gotta make this sale.’ The better portion of all sales I have made, were made after people had said ‘No.’”
Darby recalled, too, his mistake in having stopped only three feet from gold, “but,” he said, “that experience was a blessing in disguise.” (Remember, when opportunity knocks, it may be wearing a disquise.) “It taught me to keep on keeping on, no matter how hard the going may be, a lesson I needed to learn before I could succeed in anything.”
Want to build a better world? Get yourself a good idea, have the determination to bring it to fruition, and keep on keeping on!
Sara Dillinger is a Baby Boomer herself and a newbie internet entrepreneur focusing on the Baby Boomer generation because she spent sixteen years serving as pastor in United Methodist congregations all over Kansas. Those congregations were made up primarily of Baby Boomer or older members, so Sara has developed some expertise with the Baby Boomer generation. Sara is now on leave of absence and living in Atchison, Ks. with her almost-thirty year old son and two cats. She also helps her daughter, also living in Atchison, with three sons, ages 8, 6, and 1, while their father is in Afghanistan. Her blogs are found at http://www.for-boomers.com.