While we're busy searching, striving, and battling to build a fortune, we often overlook the Fortune that is right in our own backyard. Don't feel too bad, I've been there right along with you.
Perhaps the story of my own folly will help reassure you, and motivate you to take another look at the opportunities that lie at your feet…
Recently, my son Sean Edwards came on board at my company. He’s been learning the business, and getting familiar with our processes, projects, and products. When I gave him access to all the digital products we have created over the years (which we keep in a central member’s area), he was shocked.
“Do we still sell any of these?”
“No”, I told him, “I'm usually focused on selling latest product we have developed.” He laughed.
“But this is a treasure chest! What if we just started selling all these products that are sitting on a shelf?”
This was a very good question.
I admit, it’s a little embarrassing to tell this story. But there is a powerful lesson here, and it reminds me of Russell Conwell. Conwell is one of the pioneers of our industry (the information marketing/teaching/coaching industry.) According to Wikipedia, Conwell was born in 1843 and became an American Baptist minister, orator, philanthropist, lawyer, and writer. He’s best remembered as the founder and first president of Temple University in Philadelphia… and for an inspirational lecture, “Acres of Diamonds”.
“Acres of Diamonds” was a speech Conwell delivered over 6,000 times around the world. It was first published in print in 1890.
It's worth reading in its entirety, especially if you are a student of the industry (and you should be.) You can read it for free here. The basic premise of the speech is that there’s no need to go looking somewhere else for opportunity or riches. Everything we need to achieve our dreams is already present, right where we are.
Conwell credits the original tale to an Arab guide, who told Conwell about a man who so desperately wanted to discover diamonds that he sold his property and set off on a search for his fortune. Meanwhile, the new owner of the home found a rich diamond mine right there on the property. The home’s original owner had literally overlooked acres of diamonds in his own backyard.
We are presently building out a simple plan to start selling the products that I had been keeping in my “digital treasure box”. Just one example of the “acres of diamonds” on my own property.
What opportunities, assets, products, wisdom, experience, connections… what “acres of diamonds” are just lying in your backyard, waiting for you to pick them up?