HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose

CHAPTER 4

Mining Your Life for Meaning

In his book, House of Morgan, legendary historian Ron Chernow tells the story of Texas Gulf Sulphur uncovering an almost unfathomably pure concentration of precious minerals. To quote Chernow:

In November 1963, Texas Gulf drilled a secret hole at Timmins, Ontario, that flabbergasted its chief mining engineer: it was richer than anything he had seen, richer than anything ever reported in the technical literature. This mother lode of copper, zinc, silver, and lead was later valued at up to $2 billion; it was rich enough to supply 10 percent of Canada’s need for copper, 25 percent of its zinc. It was a vein so fabled that the ore sat right on the surface and could be “scooped up like gobs of caviar,” as one ...