Nov 28 2023 12 mins
J.D. Rockefeller, Purpose and Numbers – Belk on Business – Episode 180
John D. Rockefeller considered the wealthiest American in US history defined part of his purpose as follows: “It has seemed as if I was favored and got increase because the Lord knew that I was going to turn around and give it back”
It was said by historian Michael D. Simmons that Rockefeller was “singularly gifted to acquire massive amounts of wealth precisely to use the money to do God’s work in the world. Rockefeller always adverted to his own adherence to the doctrine of stewardship – the notion of the wealthy man as a mere instrument of God, a temporary trustee of His money, who devoted it to good causes.”
Rockefeller started his professional career as a bookkeeper. He has a fascination with numbers and understood that knowing and understanding them was paramount in measuring performance, identify opportunities and plan for the future. He talked about how he put faith in the numbers. They provided the following:
1) Guided decisions
2) Saved ones from fallible emotions
3) Gauged performance
4) Expose fraud
5) Ferrets out hidden inefficiencies
He was quoted as saying, “In an imprecise world, they rooted things in a solid empirical reality”.
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