Our philosophy is best illustrated by the following parable.

 

Once upon a time a young gold prospector named Jack sold all his possessions and went prospecting for gold to make his fortune. He was told that a certain river was full of gold nuggets. He was told that they were so big that they were hard to carry sometimes. Jack couldn’t wait to get started.

 

He finally got to the river. For what seemed like an eternity he dipped his pan into the river, again and again. Time after time all he found was rocks. This went on day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Jack did not find a single gold nugget. His will began to break and he lost all hope.

 

One day Jack decided that he would never be successful so he decided to quit. Just as he was about to leave an old gold prospector, who had a huge pouch of gold, showed up. Curious at the other man’s evident success, Jack tarried a while to pick his mind. He wanted to find out what had made this other man so successful. He explained to the more experienced prospector how he had not found one single nugget of gold and was getting ready to leave.

 

The older prospector asked Jack to dip his pan into the water again, in front of him. Jack was sure he would find nothing, as usual, but he obliged. As he had expected, he came up only with rocks. Discouraged, he was about to throw the rocks back into the river when the old prospector asked him to hand him two of the rocks. Curious, Jack handed him two rocks. The old prospector smashed them against each other. One of the rocks cracked open. Inside, glinting in the sunlight, were several specks of gold. “I know there are specks inside the rocks but I am trying to get nuggets, like you have in your pouch,” said an exasperated Jack.

 

The old prospector opened his pouch for Jack to see. As Jack leaned over to look inside he was stunned to see that the pouch was filled entirely with flecks of gold! There were no nuggets. It was all just flecks of gold. Said the old prospector to Jack, “My son you are so busy looking for the large nuggets of gold that you are ignoring the almost unlimited supply of these precious flecks of gold that can fill your pouch just like they fill mine. These little flecks have brought me great wealth and they can bring you the same.”

 

Many people are like Jack, always after the big nugget of success. They search and search, farther and farther, never to find it when it is within their reach all along. True success is not found in the large nuggets that come periodically. True success is found in the small flecks - in the routines of our daily lives and business.