This is a story about a social entrepreneur, born in 1843, who was to have a profound effect upon the lives of millions of people. His name was Russel H Conwell. He became a lawyer, then a newspaper editor and finally, a clergyman. It was during his church career that an incident occurred which was to change his life and the lives of countless others.

One day a group of young people came to Dr. Conwell and asked him if he’d be willing to instruct them in college courses. They all wanted a college education but lacked the money to pay for it. He told them to let him think about it and comeback in a few days. After they left, an idea began to form in Dr. Conwells’ mind.  He asked himself, “why couldn’t there be a fine college for poor but deserving young people?”, and before very long, the idea consumed him. “Why not indeed?” It was a project of total dedication – complete commitment. And almost single-handedly Dr. Conwell raised several million dollars with which he founded TEMPLE UNIVERSITY which today, is one of the USA’s leading schools.

He raised the money by giving more than 6,000 lectures all over the country. And in each one of them he told a story called, “ACRES OF DIAMONDS”. It was a true story, which affected him very deeply, and it had the same affect on his audiences. The money he needed to build the colleges came pouring in. The story was the account of a farmer who heard tales about other farmers who made millions by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. So he sold his farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the continent searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems which brought such high princes on the markets of the world. Finally, the story goes, worn-out and in affinitive despondency he threw himself into a river and drowned.

Meanwhile, the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing the small stream on his property when suddenly, there was a bright flash of blue and red light from the stream creek bottom. He bent down, picked up the stone, it was a good size stone& admiring it, later put it on his fireplace mantle as an interesting curiosity. Several weeks later a visitor picked-up the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he had found. Why the farmer said no, that he thought it was a piece of crystal. The visitor told him that he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. Well, the farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that the creek was full of such stones not as large perhaps as the one on the mantle but well they were sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom. Needless to say, the farm the first farmer had sold, so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be the most productive mine on the entire African Continent. The first farmer had owned, free and clear, acres of diamonds but had sold them for practically nothing in order to look for them elsewhere. The moral is clear, if the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself, to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state and to thoroughly explore the property he had, before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams, would have come true.

Now the thing about this story that so profoundly affected Dr. Conwell and subsequently millions of others, was the “idea” that each of us is at this moment, standing in the middle of his or her own acre of diamonds. If we’ll only have the wisdom, and patience, to intelligently and effectively explore, the work in which we are now engaged, to explore ourselves, we’ll usually find the riches we seek. Whether they be financial or intangible or both. Before we go running off to what we think are greener pastures let’s make sure that our own isn’t just as green but perhaps even greener. It’s been said that if the another pasture appears to be greener than ours, it’s quite possible that it’s getting better care…

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