Book 306 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Don’t Miss the Point!

Book – The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen

Book Description:

The fascinating untold tale of Samuel Zemurray, the self-made banana mogul who went from penniless roadside banana peddler to kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. Working his way up from a roadside fruit peddler to conquering the United Fruit Company, Zemurray became a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures.

Reflection:

What a fascinating story! Thanks for the recommendation, Ryan Holiday, and I’d highly recommend it as well.

I think it is safe to say that I will never look at any banana I eat ever again in my life without thinking about Sam the Banana Man and all that has gone into getting that piece of delicious yellow fruit to my table. I’ve been tempted to grab one every time that I’ve passed our fruit bowl while learning about the banana trade in this fascinating biography. I have eaten more bananas in the past week while reading this book than I probably have in the past 4 months combined. I honestly had forgotten how damn good those little bastard’s taste. I mean…who doesn’t love a banana?

When learning about the life and times of Samuel Zemurray, I couldn’t help but to correlate his life back to something I remember learning from Darren Hardy in his book The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster. In his book, Darren shared a story of one of his father’s close friends that had become a bit of a hero to him based off the outcomes he had produced in his life as the man had conquered the business world. The man had gotten sick and was lying on his death bed when Darren and his father went to go visit his one last time. The man called Darren over one more time after they had said their goodbyes and pulled him close to say, “Don’t miss the point!” Darren didn’t understand and waited for the explanation that would come next. The dying man said, “I had houses, too many houses, what I needed was more people, more relationships. I invested money, but I should have invested my heart. I was keeping the wrong score, I was playing the wrong game.”

This phrase, Don’t Miss the Point, is all I could think of as I listened to the story of Samuel Zemurray’s life unfold in The Fish That Ate The Whale. Over the course of his remarkable career, Zemurray had bent the will of the universe to achieve his goals of power, wealth, domination, and financial success. He was the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) at exploiting resources, capital, and ingenuity to make money off that delicious little yellow piece of fruit I couldn’t pass by all week without wanting to taste.

However, in the last few years of his life as he was watching all he built slowly slip away, I think Zemurray realized he had also spent a lifetime playing the wrong game as well based on his actions. In the last few years of his life, he desperately tried to reverse course the lifetime of exploitative practices he leveraged to amass his and United Fruit’s fortune. He said, “All We Cared About Was Dividends”! He knew that was wrong, he knew that he had exploited people, countries, and cultures and altered many lives all for the sake of making a little more money for his shareholders.

He had missed the point.

I don’t want to be like Darren’s friend or Samuel Zemurray. I don’t want to wake up after a lifetime of actions and realize that I’ve been playing the wrong damn game this whole time. I won’t let that happen and this journey is the start of me solidifying the path forward to ensure I don’t miss the point.

My dream is to look back on my life and be proud to say that I did my best to live my purpose and to transform my values into actions that I lived each and every day. I want those actions to serve as crumbs that I’ve left behind to build meaningful relationships while I’m here on this Earth and continue to influence others for many generations to come after I’m gone. Most importantly, I want to make my daughter proud and let her know that I honored my promise to her to live a purpose driven life just like she taught me.

Even though Emilia only had 39 days on this Earth, she didn’t miss the point and I won’t either.

Question: Are you missing the point?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The Fish That Ate the Whale