Crazy fact:
All the gold ever mined from the Earth would fit into a cube with edges 22 meters long — small enough to fit into three Olympic-sized swimming pools.
This is according to the very reputable Bloomberg News.
This somehow sounds like an enormous amount of gold and a tiny bit of gold simultaneously.
Enormous in terms of sheer amount. Tiny when measured over the course of history.
Also:
Over half the gold ever mined has been extracted from the Earth in the last 50 years.
This also shocks me. Although gold has been valued for thousands of years, most of it has remained inside the Earth until recently.
Gold is an interesting element and was chosen as currency and a container for wealth for good reasons:
Gold does not dissipate into the atmosphere. It does not burst into flames. It does not poison or irradiate the holder. It is rare enough to make it difficult to overproduce but malleable enough to mint into coins, bars, and bricks.
It’s also an attractive element. With very little effort, it can be made to shine.
Gold is a lot like stories. It takes little effort to turn a poorly told story into something genuinely entertaining.
With very little effort and just a few well-placed strategies, a story can be made to shine, too.
Unlike gold, the number of stories to be told is nearly endless when you know how and where to find them. Unfortunately, most people think great stories are as rare as gold:
Hard to find. Few in number. Precious in nature.
They may be precious in terms of their power to entertain, connect, and convince others, but happily, you have more than you could ever need if you can see, find, and hold onto them.
If you’re not familiar with Homework for Life, check it out here so you, too, can start to see stories as much less rare than most people think.
