Be a River

“A river can be wide or narrow, shallow or deep, swift or slow. But of all its characteristics, two are most distinctive: it makes its own path, and it flows relentlessly.”-Joseph M. Marshall, III in Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance

 Years ago, when my wife and I visited Arizona, she bought me Joseph Marshall’s little book about a modern Native American boy from the Lakota tribe who consults his grandfather, Old Hawk, about the hardships of life.  

Old Hawk uses parables to explain the life principles he is trying to instill in his grandson.  But the above quotation about rivers stuck with me long after I closed the book.

It struck me that I could be giving powerful advice to the advisors I work with by simply suggesting to them that they “be a river”—that they make their own paths and then flow relentlessly.

 In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill tells the story of R.U. Darby, who went to Colorado with his uncle in search of gold, and quit after months of digging failed to unearth the vein of gold they thought they would find.  The “junk” man to whom they sold their equipment used their maps and went on to find one of the richest gold mines in the state, a mere three feet below the point where Darby and his uncle had stopped.

The lesson was simple: Darby and his uncle had not been a river.  The two would-be gold miners had possessed one, but not both, of the river’s characteristics: they had made their own path.  But they hadn’t flowed relentlessly.

I think of the countless advisors who are stuck on a plateau, and the ones who stop, and then either go to work for someone else in the field as an employee, or quit the field altogether.  Like Darby and his uncle, these people make their own paths, but when they run into an obstruction, they just stop flowing—often only three feet from their own success.

Be a River.  If you started flowing a few years ago, but now you’re stuck or struggling, it simply means that there are obstacles impeding your flow, but the force of your relentless effort and your willingness to get help will either get you around those obstacles, or wash them all downstream.  Don’t stop, and don’t let them stop you.

 If you’ve made your own path but you’re becoming frustrated, stuck, or burnt out trying to flow around obstacles, contact me now. 

 Just keep flowing, and keep REACHING…