There is a saying: We can only "carve" our children, but not "transform" them. Parents are the carvers of their children. The future value of your children depends on the basic family education. As the saying goes, "three generations produce aristocrats", and the same is true for the oil tycoon Rockefeller. In "30 Letters from Rockefeller to His Son", he imparted his life experience and warnings. The education of billionaire Rockefeller has been passed down for six generations in the family, which is indeed worth learning from.
♦Business Advice
Rockefeller advised his children to reduce their lifelong dreams to two or three goals, and to be fully prepared before engaging in business, and to adhere to two principles:
🔸 Don’t do work that consumes your precious time
🔸 To improve reading, conversation and writing skills
Work should start from the bottom, learn to dive in the bottom, and be ambitious secretly, because the bottom can better reflect the business structure. He thinks learning is very important and it will accompany you throughout your life.
The soul of business is to create new products, which can sustain the vitality of the enterprise. In the criteria for finding partners, three major cooperation elements and three major business talents are listed:
🔸Three elements of cooperation: concentration, cooperation, and coordination
🔸Three major talents in the business field: buyers, salesmen, and financial personnel
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett said they wouldn't be where they are today without these letters from Rockefeller
♦View on money
What attitude should we have towards money? Money comes and goes, and the money earned should be given back to society, so Rockefeller believed that money should be given to others and good deeds should be done in time.
He also gave advice on how to manage children's money:
1. Correct financial management formula: residual income = after-tax income - living expenses
2. Restrain your desires, don’t use credit cards, and control your spending
3. Invest in residential properties
Personal qualities
Rockefeller believed that honesty was the most important quality in life. Excellent people never made excuses, took on responsibilities bravely, and worked hard to find solutions. Those who thought they had no chance were just looking for excuses for their failures.
Don't talk nonsense. A hundred words are not as good as one action. When it comes to choices, if you can't decide on either, do both. Do whatever comes to mind.
Entrepreneurs attach great importance to reputation in their money view. Reputation and capital are allied. Credit is the life of a businessman. The working capital of a business must be supported by the bank.
♦Management Pyramid
A qualified manager should delegate tasks to his subordinates. Daily operations should be entrusted to very capable managers. To learn how to train subordinates, managers can delegate 80% of the unimportant work to subordinates, and only do the 20% of the work that is related to the survival of the company. The specific responsibilities of managers include: corporate strategic decision-making, important target issuance, personnel reward and punishment, and development and training of subordinates. Good management means managing less but being able to control.
♦Marriage and Friendship
Rockefeller attached great importance to family, had no bad habits, believed that love was the most important investment, and chose his partner carefully. A good partner could make the family harmonious, and a good marriage required careful management together.
Rockefeller wrote in the letter that when he was young, he began to refuse to associate with these two types of people! One is those who give up struggling, are content with a small fortune and do not want to make progress; the other is those who are unwilling to persist in challenges.
There is a saying in China that “wealth does not last for more than three generations”, but this family has been prosperous for six generations. The Rockefeller family pays the most attention to their children’s education.
Family is the first school of life. Only good family traditions and family education can cultivate excellent people. Even if you are not a wealthy family, ordinary families should make their children excellent from an early age, and move towards better goals through several generations.
