This book was inspired from the story in ‘Think and Grow Rich’ where a young man, R. U. Darby and his uncle were on a mission to make big profits from the mining gold-rush in Colorado.
Luck would have it after weeks of digging the Darby’s hit the jackpot and discovered one of the richest ore veins in Colorado. So they invested in the equipment and machinery needed to continue drilling for their fortune.
But after some ‘beginner’s luck’, they ran into a problem.
They lost sight of the vein of ore.
They kept drilling and drilling to try and relocate the vein, but they could not find it.
After months of drilling and hard work they threw in the towel.
They decided to ‘quit’ on their dream of making it big from the gold-rush.
So they sold their equipment and machinery to a ‘junk man’ for a few hundred dollars.
However, this ‘junk man’ was no ordinary fellow. He was smarter than he looked. He called in a mining engineer to investigate the drill site.
The mining engineer determined that the vein of ore would be found just three feet from where the Darby’s had stopped drilling.
And he was right!
The Darby’s had failed because they had no experience with ‘fault lines’ and were not wise enough to seek expert advice.
And the ‘junk man’?
Well, he went on to make millions!
Napoleon Hill writes:
“Before success comes to most people, they are sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and perhaps some failure. When faced with defeat the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of people do.”
