Born on Third Base - Dariel Garner

Collins knows that most of the wealthiest Americans are unlikely to agree with his vision about wealth inequality. But he also believes that there are potentially several affluent Americans – not only the super-rich but also well-off professionals – who share his same values. He calls them “open-hearted wealthy people” and he talks about them in the chapter entitled (guess what?) “Openhearted Wealth”.

Dariel Garner, Arthur Cornfeld, Abe Lateiner, and Jenny Ladd all come from very different backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: open-mindedness. The story that attracted me the most was, without doubt, the one of Dariel Garner. To keep it brief, Dariel was a multimillionaire, founder, and owner of more than 40 enterprises worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total. As a business major, I really appreciate how he was able throughout his life to spot opportunities and to exploit them. I think that it is much more rewarding to build your wealth on your own rather than receiving it from parents or distant relatives as an inheritance.

The shocking fact is that today Dariel is not the owner of this empire anymore and he lives with a mere $900 check a month at the age of 67. How did this happen? This is not the story of a successful businessman that lost all his wealth because of a wrong investment or because of the financial crisis. This is the story of a man who decided on purpose to give away his money for something bigger. The turning point in his life occurred when he realized that he had never been happier before and that he had to deal with severe obesity. He made the decision of living again – in the same way as he shed millions of dollars, he also lost hundreds of pounds.

This allowed him to reconnect with nature and, most importantly, with the people around him, with his community. This strong attachment to the community reflects the reason why Dariel has always refused the title of “self-made” man. He feels that he couldn’t have had so much success without a community behind him. He was just one of the few who was able to benefit from the system. This is the reason why, rather than giving money to charities, he gave it back to the community, to those people who make everything possible– workers, teachers, artists, families, and communities. But he went a step further and also founded a movement that will help people share with their community, as a solution to our unsustainable world full of inequalities.

Eventually, the whole argument made by the author in this chapter is about the sense of community, as explicated in the last subchapter entitled “Homeward”. Coming home means becoming part of the community, having a deeper connection with others. Collins invites his readers to make this choice, which will inevitably enhance their lives. Ultimately, human beings are made for gathering into communities since the birth of the human race. No single person would be able to succeed alone, but altogether they are able to do great things.