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Tom Butler-Bowdon

success classics

Acres of Diamonds
(1921)
Russell H Conwell


Dr Russell Conwell once went on a trip along the Tigris River in present day Iraq, using a guide hired in Baghdad who would take him out to the Persian Gulf. These river guides were like barbers in that they liked to talk, but the story this one told, Conwell insists, is easily verified.

There was a man, Al Hafed, who lived on the banks of the River Indus who had a nice farm with orchards and gardens, excess cash, a beautiful wife and children. He was 'wealthy because he was contented'. Then an old priest visited him and one night related how the world was made, including the formation of all the rocks, the earth, the precious metals and stones. He told the farmer that if he had a few diamonds he could have not just one farm, but many. The farmer listened. Suddenly, he wasn't that happy with what he had thus far acquired in life.

He sold up and went travelling in search of diamonds, across Persia, Palestine and into Europe. A couple of years later, what money he had was gone, and he was wandering around in rags. When a large wave came in from the sea, he was happily swept under by it.

The man who had bought the farmer's land was another story. One day, watering his animals in the stream that ran through the property, he noticed a glint in the watery sands. It was a diamond. In fact, it was one of the richest diamond finds in history; the mines of Golconda would yield not just one or two but acres of diamonds.

Open your mind

In this tiny book, which is actually a transcript of a hugely popular lecture that he gave, Conwell relates similar true life stories about the folly of going off to find your fortune when it is in your own backyard or just staring you in the face. He suggests that most people are 'pygmies of their possible selves', because they are not willing to accept, or it did not occur to them, that they have great untouched powers: "Families do not credit their own folks with abilities they attribute to other persons. Towns and cities are cursed because their own people talk them down", he says.

Conwell's message is that we shouldn't fall for the trap of thinking that all the great people and the great businesses are somewhere else. Consider that Henry Ford started designing and building his car on his own farm and built the famous Ford production line factories in the same area where he had grown up. There was nothing special about Dearborn, Michigan - he made it special, without ever leaving his own backyard. Warren Buffett, the great investor, decided against moving his family to Wall Street. He stayed in Omaha, Nebraska and made his billions there.

The discovery of true service

Conwell's other theme is that great service is basic to prosperity.

He tells of the financier John Jacob Astor the elder, who had to suddenly go into partnership in a millinery store because the owners could not keep up mortgage payments. What did he do to get this business on its feet? He would go into the park and quietly watch the women strolling along, particularly the most confident and elegant, and take careful note of the hats they were sporting. Back in the store, he had these hats copied exactly. The result was that the store never made a hat or bonnet that a lady didn't like, and it boomed. Left behind was the idea that 'we make hats and try to sell them', to be replaced by 'what women want, we sell'.

From such basic service erupts great success, in this case a store that even in the 19th century made seventeen million dollars. You may think you have already considered it, but ask again: what do people want?

The problem with most people, Conwell says, is that their wealth is 'too near'. You need to develop an open mind to spot the obvious. This will never happen if you are continually speeding off to the next opportunity, looking for a greener pasture. Genuine service is simple, but it may only occur to you what this is when your mind has been quieted. Without finding some quiet time to yourself you will not be able to see the wood for the trees. Leave time for meditation and contemplation, and answers will come.

Another way to start is by thinking about what you need. Chances are, if you need something, others will too. The woman who invented the snap button, first used in gloves, made her fortune this way. Conwell emphasises that "It is the open-mindedness to little things that brings human success." The greatest minds think in simple terms, and the greatest people, Conwell says, are always straightforward.

You can't succeed if you have no interest in people and their needs. In Conwell's words, you must make yourself necessary to the world. What all great people have in common is that they make themselves a 'medium' for good, they make the best goods and provide them to the largest number. This, not taking money at a till, is service.

Final word

Acres of Diamonds might seem from another era, but Conwell was one of the original American motivational speakers and his talk can still inspire. It costs next to nothing to buy, can be read in about half an hour, and every so often you may like to be reminded of its two lessons:

  • There's no need to look beyond yourself and your immediate circumstances to find the seeds of your fortune.
  • Service is the key to success. Don't just sell things. Find out what people really want. This requires greater than normal thought and observation.

So simple, but so useful to remember.

"Greatness consists in doing great deeds with little means - in the accomplishment of vast purposes. It consists in the private ranks of life - in helping one's fellows, benefiting one's neighborhood, in blessing one's own city and state."


Russell H Conwell

Russell Herman Conwell was born in Worthington, Massachusetts in 1843. He attended Yale College and in 1862, not yet 20, he raised a company of volunteer soldiers and fought on the Yankee side in the Civil War as a commissioned captain.After the war Conwell studied at Albany Law School and practised law, but later went to work as a reporter for the Boston Evening Traveller. He travelled around the world for another journal, the American Traveller, and was 27 when he travelled down the Tigris river. His wife died when he was still in his twenties.

In his third career, in 1882 Conwell was invited to become pastor of a newly built Baptist church in Philadelphia. He would serve in this role for 43 years, also becoming a popular lecturer on the Lyceum and other circuits and writing a number of books. Easily his most popular lecture was 'Acres of Diamonds', which he gave over five thousand times and earned him, it is said, a million dollars. With the money he founded Temple University in Philadelphia. He died in 1925.

Source: 50 Success Classics: Your Shortcut to the Most Important Ideas on Motivation, Achievement, and Prosperity (published by Nicholas Brealey/Hachette, London & Boston).
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  • Home
  • 50 Classics Series
    • 50 Self-Help Classics >
      • James Allen - As A Man Thinketh
      • Dale Carnegie - How To Win Friends and Influence People
      • Stephen Covey - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
      • Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
      • Benjamin Franklin - Autobiography
      • Louise Hay - You Can Heal Your Life
      • Joseph Murphy - The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
      • Samuel Smiles - Self-Help
      • Teilhard de Chardin - The Phenomenon of Man
    • 50 Success Classics >
      • Claude M Bristol - The Magic of Believing
      • Jim Collins - Good To Great
      • Russell H Conwell - Acres of Diamonds
      • Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich
      • Catherine Ponder - The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity
      • David J Schwartz - The Magic of Thinking Big
      • Wallace Wattles - The Science of Getting Rich
    • 50 Spiritual Classics >
      • Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan
      • Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet
      • Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception
      • Carl Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections
      • Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe
      • CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters
      • Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements
      • 50 More Spiritual Classics
    • 50 Psychology Classics >
      • Eric Berne - Games People Play
      • Isabel Briggs Myers - Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type
      • Louann Brizendine - The Female Brain
      • David D Burns - Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
      • Robert Cialdini - Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
      • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Creativity
      • Albert Ellis - A Guide To Rational Living
      • Milton Erickson - Teaching Tales
      • Erik Erikson - Young Man Luther
      • Hans Eysenck - Dimensions of Personality
      • Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams
      • Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
      • Carl Jung - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
      • Alfred Kinsey - Sexuality In The Human Female
      • Abraham Maslow - Motivation and Personality
      • Stanley Milgram - Obedience To Authority
      • IP Pavlov - Conditioned Reflexes
      • Jean Piaget - The Language and Thought of the Child
      • Carl Rogers - On Becoming A Person
      • BF Skinner - Beyond Freedom & Dignity
    • 50 Prosperity Classics >
      • James Allen - The Path to Prosperity
      • Genevieve Behrend - Your Invisible Power
      • Richard Branson - Losing My Virginity
      • Warren Buffett - The Essays of Warren Buffett
      • Rhonda Byrne - The Secret
      • Andrew Carnegie - The Gospel of Wealth
      • Felix Dennis - How To Get Rich
      • Peter Drucker - Innovation and Entrepreneurship
      • Harv Eker - Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
      • Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom
      • Michael E Gerber - The E-Myth Revisited
      • Benjamin Graham - The Intelligent Investor
      • Esther & Jerry Hicks - Ask And It Is Given
      • Conrad Hilton - Be My Guest
      • Joe Karbo - The Lazy Man's Way To Riches
      • Catherine Ponder - Open Your Mind To Prosperity
      • Ayn Rand - Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
      • Donald Trump - The Art of the Deal
      • Max Weber - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
      • Prosperity Principles
    • 50 Philosophy Classics >
      • Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex
      • Heraclitus - Fragments
      • Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling
      • Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
      • Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Massage
      • John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
      • Montaigne - Essays
      • Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
      • Plato - The Republic
      • Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery
      • John Rawls - A Theory of Justice
      • Jean-Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness
      • Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Black Swan
      • Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations
    • 50 Politics Classics
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  • BOOK INSIGHTS
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    • Think and Grow Rich
    • The Science of Getting Rich
    • The Art of War
    • The Prince
    • The Wealth of Nations
    • The Republic
    • The Tao Te Ching
    • Meditations
    • Beyond Good and Evil
    • Origin of Species
  • Testimonials
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