Have you heard the story of R.U Darby's Uncle?

It contains a great lesson. I will be sharing it this morning.

Darby’s uncle had gone West to Colorado during the gold rush days and eventually came across gold ore. In the need of mining machinery to dig up more gold, Darby’s uncle returned home to Maryland to raise funds for the machinery. While there, he also was able to enlist Darby’s help. Once financing was secured, Darby and his uncle returned to Colorado to work the mine.

Initially, things were going well. The first remnants of gold they discovered were shipped to a smelter and the returns provided a promise that they could have one of Colorado’s richest mines. A few more gold discoveries like the first, could clear Darby and his uncle of all their debt and leave them very rich.

Needless to say, they were hopeful as they continued to drill.

Then the unbelievable happened. The vein of gold ore they had been successfully drilling just disappeared.
The gold ‘vein’ had mysteriously disappeared! It was nowhere to be found – they kept digging, and digging, and digging further down, but it was to no avail … it just wasn’t there! They desperately tried and tried and tried some more! Their hopes, dreams, all their wishes were dashed! What a disappointment with huge debt!

Confident they would find more gold Darby and his uncle continued to drill, day after day, with no luck.

Every day of drilling drove them both deeper into debt and until finally, they both decided to QUIT!

Down and out, depressed, and dragging their feet, with their shoulders stooped – they finally decided to quit. They had all those thoughts that no doubt – you’ve all had before. Thoughts like;

“ …boy, we were pretty stupid to think we would be the ones to find the biggest gold deposits in history weren’t we? What the heck were we thinking? Surely if there were any real gold here, the entire world would be digging here!

We’re just a bunch of amateurs anyway, there are well financed & rich companies out there with all the experts in the world telling them scientifically where to dig, and we come down here on a hunch and a prayer hoping to make the gold appear? Boy was that dumb … we’re just a bunch of dreamers … geeesh! Well, never
again! I’ll tell you what Darby, I willnever waste my time chasing down another one of these wild goose chases!!! I mean, I’m an adult now … this is the stuff that kids like you – your age go after this kind of thing, I’m too old for this crap anymore! I’m going to settle in and just get a good paying job and do the smart thing

They sold the drilling machinery to a nearby junkman and returned home.

The junkman wasn’t convinced that their mine had no gold, so he hired a mining engineer to get an expert opinion before breaking down all of the drilling machinery to be sold.
The engineer’s findings were shocking! He found that the vein of gold ore that Darby and his uncle had been seeking, was just three feet from where they had stopped drilling!

The junkman decided to continue drilling and that is exactly where the gold was found!

JUST THREE FEET AWAY! 😭😢😭

The junkman ended up taking millions of dollars in gold, from Darby’s former mine because he was smart enough to know what he didn’t know, and sought expert counsel

💫 My questions for reflection this week are:

💥On what are you about to give up?

💥Have you invested your time and/or money into receiving expert advice and counsel?

💥Are you stopping 3 feet from GOLD?

You shouldn’t feel bad for Mr. Darby. You see, what appears to have been a massive blunder (and it was), Darby learned
from. Remember that he vowed to find a ‘good’ job? Well Darby went into the life insurance business. He used his prior experience of having lost a fortune because he had stopped just 3 feet away from the gold. He remembered the lesson, and he vowed in his new business to – never stop because someone said ‘no’ to him when he asked them to buy insurance. So Darby never again stopped.

Darby became one of just a handful of ‘producers’ who sold over a million dollars in life insurance annually. He had learned to stick with it
because he had already experienced quitting
in his past gold mining business. It might not seem like much today, but this happened in the early 1900’s at the turn of the past century!