This Week in Refinement
Henry Ford was ruthless
And pretty much anyone can create something new, even if it already exists. Here’s what came out this week.
Spotlight Figure
Henry Ford
Born in 1863 in Michigan, a typical farm kid who preferred taking apart watches over milking cows. He founded Ford Motor Company in 1903 and later created the Model T, a car so simple that practically anyone with a job and a dream of escaping a dull life could buy it. The real breakthrough in his story wasn’t the car itself, but the way he produced it. Ford didn’t invent the assembly line, but he did what clever minds do: he took an existing idea and scaled it to the extreme until it began reshaping the entire world.
Henry fell in love with systems. He was an industrialist who dragged automobiles out of the toy-for-the-elite category and turned them into everyday tools for the masses. He paid his workers more than anyone else, not out of kindness but out of cold logic: a well-paid worker doesn’t quit and eventually.. Becomes a customer. He hated wasting time, believed everything could be simplified, and was stubborn to the point of being toxic, which shouldn’t shock anyone. Genius rarely arrives without side effects.
Ford did for cars what Apple did for smartphones: he defined the standard.
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right.
Refined Insights
The Lunatic of the Assembly Line
Obsession beats talent
He definitely wasn’t the greatest engineer of all time, but he was the most relentless one. If something didn’t work, he kept trying until it did. It shows the paradox that you can win without a “brilliant mind” if you have unstoppable momentum.
Scaling matters more
Creating the Model T was great, but the production method was the true revolution. It proves that improving an existing system often beats trying to invent a new one.
Imperfect people can change
Ford had dark, very dark sides. Yet his impact on industry is undeniable, which means we don’t need to be “perfect” to change the world. Consistency wins.
Accept the criticism
Ford was criticized, attacked, and called “the assembly-line lunatic.” Later, everyone used his system. That’s how simplicity works.
The Blueprint
Simple action
The best thing you can do today after reading this is to commit to relentlessly improving what you already do.
It sounds simple, but after a year you’ll have 300+ improvements, and after two years you’ll look like one of those “lucky” people.
So in practice: improve one process or one thing you already do by 1 percent every day.
Join the Movement
Keep refining the system
Grab our manifesto and find even more ideas from the minds of great visionaries.
Until Next Time
Michał, Refined Money.
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