Acres of Diamonds

Do you find yourself doubting whether the career choice you made was correct? Or perhaps you are content in your current workplace, yet often wonder what if I had … ?

 

In only a few months I will be joining the hundreds of students graduating from university. For many students, and people in general who are starting their careers, this is a time when doubt creeps in. Statistics claim that, on average, a person will change careers 7 times. Read more about it here. The article referenced also gives advice on what to do about career changes.

 

I believe it is important to do the work you enjoy doing, or else you will end up quitting when you face challenges and failures. You will quit because you are missing the motivation to pick yourself up. Summoning the energy and passion required to be successful will be too difficult. The drive to continue will be lost. The story of Acres of Diamonds changed my life. It helped me stop worrying about what other people were doing and it allowed me to focus on what I wanted to do.

 

I grew up with just the basics. As a child I understood my family was financially poor and since then looked up to people who were better off financially. I often wondered “how did they do it?” or “how can I get into what they are doing?”. You have asked yourself these questions also, haven’t you? Well, turns out this mentality can be both good and bad. Good, if it is leading you to a better life and motivating you to work smarter and harder. However, it can be bad if we expend all of our time and energy looking at others and their accomplishments that we lose ourselves in the process. We follow others so closely that we come to know them better than we know ourselves.

 

In the past years I have become extremely interested in others’ success. I have learned a lot by meeting with business owners and executives and hearing their stories, but at the end of the day I have to create my own story, and so do you.

 

So here is Acres of Diamonds.

 

 

Story Time
The Acres of Diamonds story ”a true one” is told of an African farmer who heard tales about other farmers who had made millions by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. He sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent searching, unsuccessfully, for the gleaming gems. Finally, worn out and in a fit of despondency, he threw himself into a river and drowned.

 

Meanwhile, the man who had bought the first man’s farm happened to be crossing the small stream on the property one day. He noticed, coming from the bottom of the stream, flashes of blue and red light. He bent down and picked up a stone. It was a good-sized stone, and admiring it, he brought it home and put it up on his fireplace mantel as an interesting curiosity.

 

Several weeks later, a visitor picked up the stone, examined it closely, hefted it in his hand, and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he’d found. When the farmer that he thought it was just a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. The farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that his creek was full of such stones, not all as large as the one on the mantel, but sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom.

 

The farm the first farmer had sold, so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be one of the most productive diamond mines on the entire African continent. The first farmer had owned, free and clear … acres of diamonds. But he had sold them for practically nothing, in order to look for them elsewhere. The moral is clear: If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state, and to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams would have come true.

 

diamond-cartoonWhich farmer do you want to be? Are you a spectator or are you going to take action? Invest in your career by putting all the energy you have into your work. Make a goal to work as hard as you can for a month and get ready to accomplish more than you ever have.

 

Stop worrying about what the guy next to you is doing and get to work. Focus.

 

There are people out there who are always looking for the golden opportunity, the one thing that will make them totally successful. Yet they don’t put enough time and effort to discover the real value of their work. Don’t spread out too thin trying to be everything. Find what you are good at and be the best at it.

 

Nowadays there is so much information available that our minds can get overwhelmed quickly. Go one step at a time, goal by goal, and get results. It might be time to stop and think about where you are at in your career/life. Find a worthy goal and pursue it. Look around your work place and find opportunities to serve better and get noticed more. Success is right in front of you. Just work hard enough to find it.

 

 

Dan
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