Here is a true life example of this feeling in action and how it manifested an immense fortune...

Rafael Solano, his back bent, his shoulders crushed by an invisible weight, sat on a boulder in the dry river bed. He lifted his head up slowly. It weighed a ton. He spoke in a low voice, his words almost incomprehensible. He mumbled again to his two friends.

“I quit.”

They stopped gathering pebbles and looked at him.

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

The sweat glistened on his brow. The brilliant sun had parched his face to a network of fine blood vessels. Dark shadows outlined his eyes.

He held up a pebble in his hand. “The next one will be a million”

He threw the pebble down. It bounced off another stone and lay shining in the sunlight.

The year was 1942; the country, Venezuela.

Long hard months had passed for the three men prospecting for diamonds in the watercourse of their native country. They had worked relentlessly, driven by greed, by passion, by an outrageous hope for the future. They had stooped and gathered pebbles from sunup to sundown. They had fought off discouragement with talk about how they would spend their new found wealth. But all they ever found were pebbles. Now, as they all faced each other, their clothes were torn and filthy, merely rags, clinging to their gaunt bodies. They stank of long months of unwashed sweat, which had soaked into skin, hair, and what was left of their clothes.

But something inside Rafael didn't believe that it was over. Somehow, he had felt predestined to achieve his impossible goal. So when his friend said, “Pick up another pebble, make it a million,” he sank down on his knees and sank his hands in the sand. Somehow he knew he must succeed--despite how bleak things looked in the moment.

He wriggled his hands around in the moist sand until he touched a large, hard object. He pulled out a sand-encrusted pebble about the size of a hen’s egg. He bounced the heavy pebble in his hand, a little surprised by the weight of it. His friends watched in awe as he brushed the pebble clean.

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

The millionth pebble was affectionately named, The Liberator.

When all else fails, persist.

Rafael Solano and his friends had a wild dream. There was nothing sensible about this dream. It was, in fact, so far-flung, so outrageous, that a sensible person would have dismissed it at the first thought. They wanted to find diamonds. After much inquiry, they found a spot that had a reputation for being a possible site.

The men worked long and hard in apparently futile labor. They kept each others spirits up, and when, at the 999,999th pebble Rafael Solano was about to give up, his friends pushed him to continue.

Then as if on a cue, the universe gave back the men a millionfold return on their sweat equity. After months of not having the slightest clue that they were in the right place, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, a diamond showed up, and it was a diamond of such epic proportions that they did not have to try any more.

In your own life, if you have a dream, follow it. No matter how wild, outrageous, and improbable it may seem. If possible travel on your journey with friends who will support you. Friendship can keep your faith alive long after your energy and hope have been worn away.

Another thing you might want to do is to go where your probability of success is greatest.

When you work long and hard at the apparently futile, remember that your sense of futility is a lie; it is merely your conditioned mind reminding you of your limits; the lie seeks to eliminate your future promise.

Sooner or later, you’ll get results. Unless you’re searching for something as random as a diamond, you’re less likely to have to try 999,999 times before you get results. Chances are that your returns will be faster, much, much faster, a hundred-fold faster.

Above all, in the throes of failure persist. Persistence can initiate success. When talent and effort have been exhausted, persistence will carry you through to the end. Sometimes all that is needed to change a hopeless situation is hanging on until you find the millionth pebble.

In the memorable words of Winston Churchill, “Never, never, never, never give up.”

The mass appeal of movie-character Indiana Jones is that he symbolizes the quality of persistence. No matter how bad things get, he keeps on trying one more time.
Eventually, somehow, despite every reversal, he breaks through to his goal.

You, too, must learn the art of persistence. Persist when you’re completely exhausted. Persist when all efforts fail. Persist when you feel hopeless. You will find your dream if you can persist long enough.

You may sometimes win through sheer luck. You may sometimes win through broad talent. But, eventually, neither luck nor talent will be enough, and the principle of persistence is all that you will have left. In the end, it may be that persistence is your only abiding friend. It will pull you through all the pain, all the toil, all the hardship. In the long run, persistence, more than any other trait of success, makes a true winner. Persistence pays. It pays handsomely. With persistence comes learning and adaptation. With persistence comes luck and change.

To succeed in anything, learn how to endure adversity, learn how to feel confident in the midst of obvious failure. Let no-one and nothing deter you from your heart’s desire.

Water persistently washing against the hardest rock will eventually erode it away.
Be as water.

“Beware of no-one more than of yourself,” said Charles Spurgeon. “We carry our worst enemies within us.” When you give up, you let yourself down. You lose your chance at success. You also lose your self-confidence.

Persist! Stick to what you set out to do. Stick to it even if it doesn’t seem worth it. Physical energy, moods, circumstances change. The darkness passes. In the face of failure, poverty, loneliness and obscurity, persistence brings you success.