3 Feet From Gold ✨

Three feet. That’s how far the Darbys were from a lifetime of prosperity and riches.

The Darbys, like many other families in America during the mid-1800s, came down with gold fever. They had some initial success when they discovered a sparkling ore in Colorado. Needing a drill to extract it, they waited for the equipment to arrive. Drill in hand received, they went back to their mineshaft to retrieve their gold.

But much to their chagrin, as they began to drill, they could no longer locate the vein of gold. They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again, but to no avail. For one reason or another, they finally decided to call it quits.

They sold the machinery and mineshaft to a ‘junk man’ for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. This man would turn out to be very lucky.

He went to the Darby’s previously owned mineshaft and began digging. The elusive vein of gold they were looking for would be found just three feet from where the Darbys had stopped drilling.

The ‘Junk man,’ took millions of dollars in ore from the mine. I guess it’s true, another man’s trash is another man’s gold (almost literally).

The takeaway might be obvious, but it’s worth pointing out especially given my experience working at a startup. There are inevitably going to be roadblocks, deceiving outcomes, and the possibility of giving up when things don’t turn out the way we expect.

But don’t be so quick to consider what you have as junk. We are all closer to achieving our goals than we think we are. Maybe even just three feet away.

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If you scroll through LinkedIn, you’ll likely be inundated with posts about sunk-cost fallacy and the benefits of quitting. All of the sudden, quitting has been rebranded as virtuous. You should indeed quit if your spidey-senses are going off and the circumstances feel toxic or a waste of time. However, if that’s not the case, I want to offer a contrarian perspective: you might be quitting too soon.

Here’s a cliche to use on your future LinkedIn post instead, the best things in life don’t come easy. If you want to see something that you’re passionate about come to life, you have to persevere. Seek counsel, leverage what you have control over, and ignore those who conspire against you. You have to be committed to overcome challenge after challenge until you strike gold.

I’ll give a quick example of someone who didn’t quit three feet from ‘gold.’

When a young Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi , told his friends and family members that he wanted to create a way to send messages through the air he was threatened with getting placed in a psychiatric ward. To make a long story short, this man invented radio communications.

He was 19 when he managed to accomplish this incredible feat. And yes he was a genius; but beyond all his intellect, he was antifragile. He managed to do the impossible because he refused to quit despite being threatened to be incarcerated.

Another example, close to my heart: Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican revolutionary, said he would rather “die on his feet than live on his knees”. Zapata faced immense opposition when leading his community to the front lines of the revolutionary war. He had an uncanny ability to motivate people and focus their aim unanimously towards a greater goal. He was one of the reasons Mexico is an independent country today and his efforts resulted in an agrarian movement called Zapatismo. He had a vision of a future where his community would be free and he made it happen.

The common denominator for Marconi and Zapata? The inability to quit.

Our whole experience as a modern human can be attributed to someone’s courage and perseverance to bring it to life. Think about it, the internet didn’t have to exist, didn’t have to exist. These were all someone’s crazy ideas turned into reality.

At Live Bash, we stand by performers’ dreams. We strive to make opportunities in the performance space more affordable and accessible to anyone. If the door has been closed in your face countless times before, we’re here to make sure you don’t give up. Live Bash rewards your perseverance with a platform to showcase what you got.

So welcome to Live Bash — a platform built by people who don’t know how to quit. We can’t wait to watch your ideas be shaped into reality. At Live Bash, we know you’re only three feet away from gold.

“The views expressed here are those of Edu alone, shoutout to Napoleon Hill for the amazing exposure to all these old and new ideas of life”