What if you gave up 3 feet from gold
what if
you gave up three feet from gold
in the book by napoleon hill think and
grow rich there was a young gold miner
by the name of r
u darwi way way back decided to invest
all the family’s money in his quest for
gold
chasing the dream he wanted to change
his family’s life he wanted to change
his life
he wanted to create a legacy off he went
with his uncle
to the gold mine and they started to
mine for gold
they had some early success but not
enough not enough to change a life
so the continued demand the further the
mind
the further the desperation and anxiety
set on
they continue to mine but they were
mining further in the depth
eventually they gave up they accepted
failure
they sold the equipment to a local scrap
man and explained the situation
but the scrap man and his wisdom took
some counsel
he returned to the scene and began
mining again
three feet later he struck gold
rich beyond his wildest dreams he
changed his family’s life he changed
everything
when argue derby and his uncle heard
this they were distraught as you can
imagine
they had accepted failure when they had
the actual of choice and ability
to keep going but they accepted failure
they gave up powerful powerful story but
how does it even relate to today you
might ask
it’s hundreds of years ago well
i’d ask you this have you ever felt like
a failure
have you ever felt not good enough have
you ever felt useless
what if i told you you’re not you
actually only fail when you give up
keep going if you have a goal and you
know it’s the right goal
and you believe in your heart it’s the
right goal don’t change the goal
change the plan anyway
i didn’t always think this way um and
people that know me will know that
rewinding back the following words are
words that i would have used to describe
myself
useless failure not good enough
disappointment let down wick
i could go on you get the drift you get
the message
i was locked up i felt locked in my mind
which brings me on to a question i
wonder anybody listen to this have you
ever been in prison before
have you ever been in jail because i
have
i’ve never told anybody that before and
i’m telling you right now
i was a prisoner of my mind for 24 years
locked up no key to get out i felt like
one of those guys
or girls on death row
no chance of reprieve i would look at
other people wishing i was them they had
it all figured out i hadn’t
you know that amy curry ted talk the one
that went viral
and no pressure mentioning that talk
during mine
but i love it and i hear it at the very
same time
i love it because she talks about power
posturing
and power posturing right now and i feel
great
but when i was younger and she talks
about faking it do you make it
i didn’t even have the courage to fake
it
i didn’t have the courage they own my
own mind
what chance have you got when that’s how
you actually feel
but it’s not all anxiety and pain
and unhurt when i look back i can
actually laugh now i can laugh out loud
some things are so funny you know the
game hiding sick
that my generation would have played now
it’s a playstation generation but when i
was younger it was hide and seek that’s
what we played
well i was very very very good at it and
without fear of contradiction
i would say i was the submarines high
school
hide and seek champion from 1987 to 1992
and there’s a skill in there somewhere
and i still have to work out whether i’m
proud of it or not
but you see for five years i avoided
giving a book review in class
five years my whole time at school and i
had full attendance by the way i never
missed a day
every month we were supposed to speak to
the class
about the book that we read and how we
found it
and as that dreaded day with near every
month i would come up with the best
excuse you’ve ever seen i was sick
i had a dentist i had football practice
or i just skipped the class
um i would have done anything to avoid
speaking and i did
and i calculated that’s about 165 times
that i had and i was never found if
anybody’s got a better record than that
i’d love to
hear it um also i would like to
apologize
to my english teacher actually mrs
holmes i believe she’s retired now but
if anybody knows her please pass this on
i’d like to apologize to her for wasting
her time and i would
love to return to that school and
perhaps give this ted talk maybe
what a full circle that would be
as i mentioned about the anxiety
speaking publicly i would rather have
died
honestly i would rather give my own life
than had to speak
and i later found a stanford universe
university study in the us the
prestigious university
had a study about this and 73 percent of
people said the exact same thing
i wasn’t such a freak after all but i
didn’t know it at the time
i wonder how many people actually feel
this way today
and hide those feelings and live in that
prison that i let i loved on
it’s an awfully dreaming place and i
wouldn’t wish it in anybody
speak to somebody about that please
through pain however comes growth
i’m proof of that today speaking in the
famous red dot for somebody that didn’t
want to speak for five years and avoided
speaking
look at henry ford the great henry ford
that produced the cars that we all know
today on the road and his first wave of
investment
he didn’t produce one single car not one
but he didn’t fail he didn’t fail he’s
famously actually quoted
failure is only an opportunity to go
again but this time more intelligently
and that lives with me i feel forward
every day
i continue to feel if i feel here today
it’ll be forward i’ll be better the next
time keep going
through pain as i said already comes
growth
and with that in mind there’s a date
that’s etched in my memory for those two
feelings
the 24th of the sixth 2000
it’s a date that’ll be etched in my
memory forever
and it should be my wife would say and i
know she’s watching this now
today i got married lucky her
lucky me and
apart from the obvious anxiety about
speaking at my own wedding
and i actually nearly did a runner about
five minutes before my speech
and that is a true story and it’s a
whole other talk maybe another ted talk
actually
um as i was sitting there and the
anxiety was building and the dread was
building and i was thinking what door
was i gonna run out
my father-in-law was sitting to my
right-hand side
marshall mccollum remember that name
marshall stood up and as my right foot
was tapping
and the sweat was running down my brow
and i was welling up with tears
marshall was talk marshall said i
believe in him
i believe he will go a long way in life
i believe in him so much i know for
certain
he has what it takes it was like an
outer body experience for me
honestly i had never ever ever heard
those words
and my name in the same breath breath
it’s just not the word i’m from in my
world we didn’t express
feelings and for him to say that
and he and for me to hear that he loved
me
and he had the courage selfless courage
to express that
and that’s and that’s a skill and an art
and a quality
that i that i try to pass on today he
made me feel
10 feet tall he made my dreams come true
in that moment right there he didn’t
know it at the time
but he knows that now it changed my life
see sometimes whether we like it or not
or even admitted or not
and i defy anybody to tell me i’m wrong
if i’m wrong i stand corrected
but at some point in our life we all
seek or certainly like and accept
validation from others
that we’re right that we’re good enough
that we’re on the right path
it’s good it’s always good it’s always
good to hear it right
well people often ask me
how do you develop the ability to keep
going gary you talk about keeping going
no matter what feeling forward
all the buzz cliche phrases words terms
they all fly about in the personal
development world but how do you
actually do it
people want to know how to do it well
i’m going to share my unique insight
into how i do it
and how i believe you can do it if you
either struggle with it or if you want
to pass it on and give that gift to
somebody else
i’m going to share my unique insight you
see
in life i believe we all have a purpose
it might take you a while to find it it
took me 42 years
but i found it now my my advice to
anybody is
follow your passion what is it you love
doing is it football
personal development art what is it
follow your passion you will find your
purpose in life
your purpose lies beyond your passion
but here’s here’s the secret
here’s that x factor that magic wand
that people are looking for
why is it your purpose why is it your
passion
now here’s where you have to be brief
you need to go deep inside for your way
because i had a exercise with my dear
friend
and mentor cleon o’hara he was an
original derricker
and is now residing in the u.s and
cleona asked me on a call one night from
the u.s and i met her and call
gary what what’s your why why do you do
what you do
straight off about i do it for my family
so cliche everybody does it for their
family of course
and she said that to me said guy you and
millions of others now tell me
why you do and as the conversation
evolved
after about half an hour i found my way
a wave of emotion came over me like you
wouldn’t believe
like the 24th of the 6th 2000 that sort
of emotion
it was that sort of moment again and
before
i share it with you i want to apologize
to cleona
i’m full of apologies today mrs holmes
now cleona
i want to apologize to cleona because
her inbox will be falling upright about
now everybody’ll be wanting to know
their true way
but here here’s my way i’ll share it
with you right here
and right now my way is to make my wife
and my children proud of me simply
because
nobody has ever been proud of me or even
demonstrated it
before and that’s not a violin story
it’s just the word i’m from
we don’t think we haven’t experienced
express those emotions and feelings and
that’s okay
i accept that it’s all good it’s all
love of me
but i want to make my wife and my
children proud of me the way nobody has
ever been
and they’re watching this right now and
i hope they are
you see finding that way is a beautiful
beautiful thing
and i hope everybody knows their way and
if you don’t please go and explore it
see now i’m like a formula one car with
an unlimited fuel tank
and i’m going through life on a
relentless charge just watch me
i’m i’m attempting to be the best me
every day of the week every second of
the week i’m attempting to be the best
me right now
feeling some might say that’s okay don’t
stop three feet from gold now never stop
three feet from gold
no matter how successful i am i’ll i
love and that’s space three feet from
gold i’ll be there forever
i’ll always be going forward
do you know your way explore it find it
change your life or even if you’ve got a
really good life make it even better
i often think what of all young boys and
girls
knew their way what if i knew my way
when i was at school
scared to speak maybe i would have got
up speaking
i make up for it now i do plenty of
talking now
um anyway as i’ve said
true growth for me comes through pain
it’s always been that way for me life’s
always a beautiful struggle
it’s always finding calm and the chaos
it’s always finding that place
that it never comes easy for me and if
it does i don’t want that
i i want the struggle i want i want that
i want that i want the hurt and the pain
because i want to grow
um and when i talk about pain i
experienced a measurable pain
when i say i i mean we my family
five years ago the late and the great
marshall mccollum
died and
that’s okay because marshall
saved my life he gave me that
life-saving drug
of self-belief and this talks for him
and i wouldn’t swap that heartache and
heartbreak for anything
honestly i hope we all
feel that heartbreak and heartache if it
saved your life
and you hear those words that i heard
we all need immersal right everybody
needs a marshall
are you one could you be one
if you’re not one you should be your
words can change your life
who can you inject self-belief on day
today
right after this talk who can you go and
tell
that they’re good enough that you
believe in them
that they have what it takes you might
be thinking it
but be selfless and give them the gift
tell them
it might be the only time that they ever
hear it
in their entire life it was for me
i had never heard it before it changed
my
life one word one sentence is all it
takes
go and change your life be the best you
be a martial
the world needs it today right the
global pandemic
this crazy world we’re living on today
we all need hope we all need some belief
i believe history history will judge us
all i truly believe that
i’d encourage everybody to be the best
damn right now
or if you’re not a marshal and you’re a
gary
lucky you you’re thinking maybe not
keep dreaming keep believing
keep searching keep going keep moving
forward
be a dream maker be a dream chaser never
ever ever as long as you love give up
what if you are three
feet from gold yes