Page 90 - Morgan Housel - The Psychology of Money_ Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness-Harriman House Limited (2020)

American home increased from 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,436 square feet
in 2018. The average new American home now has more bathrooms than
COBACOBA
occupants. Our cars are faster and more efficient, our TVs are cheaper and

sharper.

What’s happened to our time, on the other hand, barely looks like progress.
And a lot of the reason has to do with the kind of jobs more of us now have.

John D. Rockefeller was one of the most successful businessmen of all
time. He was also a recluse, spending most of his time by himself. He rarely
spoke, deliberately making himself inaccessible and staying quiet when you
caught his attention.

A refinery worker who occasionally had Rockefeller’s ear once remarked:
“He lets everybody else talk, while he sits back and says nothing.”

When asked about his silence during meetings, Rockefeller often recited a
poem:

A wise old owl lived in an oak,

The more he saw the less he spoke,

The less he spoke, the more he heard,

Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?

Rockefeller was a strange guy. But he figured out something that now
applies to tens of millions of workers.

Rockefeller’s job wasn’t to drill wells, load trains, or move barrels. It was to
think and make good decisions. Rockefeller’s product—his deliverable—

wasn’t what he did with his hands, or even his words. It was what he
figured out inside his head. So that’s where he spent most of his time and
energy. Despite sitting quietly most of the day in what might have looked