Henry Ford was the first businessman known for paying his employees the highest wages in the market. A journalist once asked him, “Who do you pay the most?”
Ford smiled and led the reporter into his production room. Work was going on everywhere, people were running around, bells were ringing, and elevators were running. The entire hall was abuzz with chaos. Amid the chaos was a cabin where a man was lying comfortably in a chair, his feet propped up on a table. He had a hat on.
Ford knocked on the door. The man looked up from under his hat and said in a tired voice,
“Hello Henry, are you all right?”
Ford smiled and nodded. Then he closed the door and walked out. The journalist watched the scene in amazement.
Ford laughed and said,
“This guy makes the highest salary in my company.”
The journalist asks in surprise, “What does this person do?”
Ford replied, “Nothing. He just comes and sits with his feet on the table all day.”
The journalist asked, “So why do you pay him the highest salary?”
Ford replied, “Because he’s the most useful person I’ve ever had.”
Ford said,
“I hired this guy to think. All the systems and vehicle designs in my company are his ideas. He comes in, lies down in a chair, thinks, creates new ideas, and sends them to me. I work on them and make millions of dollars.”
Ford said,
“The most valuable things in the world are ideas, and for ideas you need free time. Complete silence, freedom from all kinds of chatter. If you’re busy day and night, you can’t come up with new ideas and new projects. So I’ve hired a smart person just to think. I’ve also given him financial freedom so he can give me a new idea every day.”
The journalist was forced to clap.
If you also try to understand this wisdom of Henry Ford, then you too will not be able to stop yourself from clapping.
If a person is a laborer or artisan, they work all day. But as they rise up the ladder, their leisure time increases. People in large industries and new sectors stay away from home for most of the year.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are also among the most leisurely people in the business world. Warren Buffett reads for four and a half hours a day. Bill Gates finishes two books a week. Both of them read approximately 80 books a year. They drive their own cars, wait in line for coffee and burgers, and use smartphones sparingly. Yet, they are among the richest people in the world. How? Because of their leisure and freedom of thought.
Unless we are mentally free, our mind does not work on big ideas.
Therefore, if you want to accomplish great things in the world, you must free yourself. If you keep yourself busy with small tasks, you will be unable to think and then you will be unable to accomplish great things in life