Rafael Solano, his back hunched, his shoulders crushed by an invisible weight, sat on a boulder in the dry riverbed. He raised his head slowly. He weighed a ton. He spoke softly, his words almost incomprehensible. He muttered back to the two friends of him.

“I leave.”

They stopped collecting pebbles and looked at him.

“I can’t go on. I don’t believe in that anymore.”

Sweat glistened on his forehead. The bright sun had dried her face to a network of fine blood vessels. Dark shadows outlined her eyes.

He picked up a stone in his hand. “The next will be a million”

He threw the stone down. She bounced off another stone and gleamed in the sunlight.

It was the year 1942; The country, Venezuela.

Long and hard months had passed for the three men who were looking for diamonds in the watercourse of their native country. They had worked tirelessly, driven by greed, by passion, by an outrageous hope for the future. They had bent down and picked up pebbles from dawn to dusk. They had fought discouragement by talking about how they would spend their newfound wealth. But all they found were pebbles. Now, as they all clashed, their clothes were torn and dirty, mere rags, clinging to their emaciated bodies. They reeked of months of unwashed sweat, which had soaked into skin, hair, and what was left of their clothing.

“Pick up another pebble,” urged one of Rafael’s friends. “Make it a million.”

Solano knelt down and dug his hands into the sand. He twisted it in the wet sand until he touched a large, hard object. He pulled out a sand-encrusted pebble the size of a chicken egg. He bounced the heavy stone off his hand, a little surprised at his weight. His friends watched in amazement as he brushed the pebble clean.

The one millionth pebble, the largest and purest diamond ever found, was sold in New York to Harry Winston, a jewelry dealer. He paid Rafael Solano $2,000,000 for the diamond.

The one millionth pebble was affectionately called “The Liberator”.

success principle

When all else fails, persist.

Rafael Solano and his friends had a wild dream. There was nothing sensible in this dream. In fact, it was so extensive, so scandalous, that a sensible person would have dismissed it at once. They wanted to find diamonds. After much research, they found a place that had a reputation as a possible site.

The men worked long and hard at seemingly futile work. They kept their spirits up, and when, at pebble 999,999, Rafael Solano was about to give up, his friends pushed him to continue.

Then, as if on cue, the universe gave men a millionfold return on their sweat. After months of not having the faintest idea they were in the right place, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, a diamond appeared, and it was a diamond of such epic proportions that they didn’t have to try anymore.