The Diamonds Under Your Feet.

Once upon a time, according to a very old and very popular lecture, there was a man who owned a farm.

Not the sort of opening you usually associate with staggering wealth.

But stay with me.

He hears stories of rich diamond discoveries somewhere far away.

The more he thinks about those diamonds, the less he can see the life in front of him.

He hasn’t lost his farm. But in his imagination, he’s already lost interest in it.

That land he's worked?

Just dirt.

That stream flowing through the property?

Just water.

That familiar view he's seen a thousand times?

Well, it's hardly going to make him rich, is it?

So, in Russell Conwell's telling of the story, the farmer sells his place and goes looking for diamonds.

And looking.

And looking.

You can almost feel the idea chasing him across the map.

The thing I need is somewhere else.

The real opportunity is somewhere else.

The life I want must be somewhere else.

Once that thought takes hold, even a good thing can begin to look like an obstacle.

Eventually his search ends in ruin.

Meanwhile, back on the land he sold, its new owner notices something glinting among the stones in the stream.

He picks it up.

A diamond.

And, as the parable goes, the farm turns out to contain extraordinary riches.

All that searching. And the treasure was beneath his feet.

It's a wonderful story.

And a slightly dangerous one, if you misunderstand it.

You could hear this story and conclude that you should never leave home.

Never search.

Never chase an ambition.

Never learn from anyone else.

Just stand in the backyard and wait for the diamonds to introduce themselves.

Which would be a terribly convenient philosophy for somebody who doesn't want to mow the lawn.

But that's not how I hear it.

I hear it as an invitation to question a particular assumption:

Why do we so often assume that what's familiar can't possibly be valuable?

Think of the things we tend to overlook.

The experience you gained doing work you thought was beneath you.

The strange combination of interests that doesn't fit neatly on a résumé.

The problem you've personally wrestled with for years.

The people you already know.

The place you came from.

The ideas you've been collecting all along.

None of those things guarantees a fortune.

But I wonder how often we dismiss them because we're waiting for something that looks more official.

A credential. A new city. Another course. Another mentor. Someone else's permission.

Sometimes the next step really is out there.

Sometimes you need to travel, change your circumstances, seek help, learn new skills, or begin again somewhere entirely different.

But sometimes the thing worth looking at is the assumption that you aren't ready yet.

I can't read the story without smiling a little at the farmer.

Because I grew up on a ranch.

And I spent years looking for a different way to make a living.

That's how I discovered the internet, marketing, online business, and eventually a whole universe of ideas I might never have explored otherwise.

I’m glad I went searching. Some of the best ideas I’ve found came from looking well beyond the pasture fence.

But in the middle of all that searching, I began to notice something funny.

I had been treating some of the blue-collar work I knew as something to get away from.

Then I realized that, given the freedom to choose, I might happily do the very same work again.

The fence hadn't changed.

The conditions I wanted around it had.

And the skills, perspectives, and experiences I gained in that earlier life weren't things I had to discard in order to become someone else.

They were part of the very person doing the searching.

It wasn’t the search that bothered me. It was the quiet assumption that what I already knew couldn’t possibly count.

Now, to be clear, I have not discovered diamonds on our ranch.

If I do, you'll probably hear about it.

Although I may be suspiciously difficult to reach for a few days.

Ha!

But as a metaphor? The story keeps getting more interesting.

Here's something to try, if you're in the mood.

Think of a goal that's been making you feel like you're missing something important.

Now ask:

What part of this do I already have?

Not the finished result.

Not some imaginary bank account or a magical ability you haven't developed yet.

I mean something real.

A skill. An experience. A relationship. A useful lesson. An hour. A place to start.

Write down the first three things that come to mind.

Then ask what you could do with one of them this week.

Nothing mystical required.

Just an honest look at what's already there.

And this is where the story turns into something more interesting than a tale about riches.

Maybe there isn't anything wrong with wanting more.

Maybe the trouble begins when you decide that until you have more, you are less.

That's a different kind of treasure hunt.

And it leads to an even stranger question:

What if you can be enough right now—and still have one hell of an adventure becoming, building, and discovering?

I don't think that question has one tidy answer. Which is fortunate.

Because then we'd have to stop exploring.

And I, for one, was just starting to enjoy myself.

Which raises an awkward possibility: perhaps the most expensive part of searching isn’t always what you spend. Sometimes it’s what you stop trusting about yourself.