The Power of Belief — Belief Comes Before Ability
“It’s a question I have asked myself repeatedly as I researched, interviewed, traveled, and wrote. In the end, I decided that his career is the history of the nation, the promise and the betrayal of that promise, experienced in the span of a single life. It starts a hundred years ago, when America was a rising power, and ends the day before yesterday, with the confidence of the people sapped. It might look bad but, as Zemurray understood, as long as you’re breathing, the end remains to be written. Sam’s defining characteristic was his belief in his own agency, and his refusal to despair. No story is without the possibility of redemption; with cleverness and hustle, the worst can be overcome. I can’t help but feel, after all the talk of America’s decline, that we would do well by emulating Sam Zemurray — not the brutality or the conquest, but the righteous anger that sent the striver into the boardroom of laughing elites, waving his proxies, shouting, “You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I’m going to straighten it out.”
That was part of the book, the Fish that Ate the Whale, about the Banana king, Sam Zemmuray. One of America’s best business builders, who was known for his belief in his own agency, and his refusal to despair.
We’ll get back to these lines, and to why I read them to you just next, but before…
