Henry Ford was the world’s first businessman known for paying his employees the highest wages in the market. One day, a journalist came and asked him, “Who do you pay the highest salary to?”

Ford smiled and took the journalist to his production room. Work was going on everywhere, people were running around, bells were ringing, and lifts were moving. The whole hall looked chaotic. Amidst that chaos, there was one cabin where a man was lying comfortably on a chair with his feet up on the table. A hat covered his face.

Ford knocked on the door. The man looked from under the hat and said in a tired voice,
“Hello Henry, are you okay?”

Ford smiled and nodded. Then he closed the door and walked out. The journalist watched the entire scene in amazement.

Ford laughed and said,
“This man gets the highest salary in my company.”

The journalist asked in surprise, “What does this man do?”

Ford replied, “Nothing. He just comes, sits with his feet on the table all day.”

The journalist asked, “Then why do you pay him the highest salary?”

Ford answered, “Because he is the most useful person for me.”

Ford explained,
“I hired this man to think. All the systems of my company and the designs of the cars come from his ideas. He comes, sits, thinks, prepares new ideas, and sends them to me. I work on them and earn millions of dollars.”

Ford said,
“The most valuable things in the world are ideas, and to get ideas you need free time. Complete peace, freedom from every kind of noise. If you stay busy day and night, new ideas and projects cannot come to your mind. That’s why I hired a smart man only to think. I also gave him financial freedom so that every day he can give me a new idea.”

The journalist couldn’t help but clap.

If you also try to understand Henry Ford’s wisdom, you too won’t be able to stop yourself from clapping.

If a man is a laborer or craftsman, he works all day. But as he rises higher, his free time increases. People in big industries and new fields often don’t step out of their homes for the whole year.

In the business world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among the freest people. Warren Buffett reads four and a half hours daily. Bill Gates finishes two books a week. Together, they read about 80 books a year. They drive their own cars, stand in line for coffee and burgers, and use smartphones very little. Yet, they are the richest people in the world. How? Because of free time and the freedom to think.

Until we are mentally free, our brain cannot work on big ideas.

That’s why, if you want to do something great in the world, you must keep yourself free. If you keep entangling yourself in small tasks, you won’t be able to think — and then you won’t be able to achieve anything big in life.

Vina Talk