Sam Walton, Made in America What an inspiring story. He is the founder
of Walmart and one of the greatest entrepreneurs and one of the largest companies in the world
and let's just talk about his life the timeline of his life. At the age of 27 he bought Ben
Franklin discount store within a few years he had really grown that store a lot with
his entrepreneurial skills to the point that the owner of that shop in the sense he had
taken the lease out of the store and the owner of that land of the real estate decided that
he was not going to renew the lease. So he was ousted of his own store because he couldn't
renew the lease and at the age of 33 he had to start over again which he did by starting
stores in Arkansas. He made those a larger success and moved on at the age of 44 to start
Walmart. A lot of people think Walmart was an overnight success but he became a billion-dollar
company when he was 61 and he became the richest man in America he was a billionaire in 1982
when he was 64 years old so there's a lot to look and learn from this guy how he did
how he created one of the biggest one of the largest entrepreneurial success in this world
the biggest company at one point and the largest retailer in the world bar none. So what was
it about Sam Walton that made him so successful? He himself the first thing to learn about
him he had a passion to compete. And that is why in your start up you might have a passion
for something else but whatever that passion is in his case it was the passion to compete
and he says money has never meant much to him it was all about competing and being the
best he wanted to be the very best at the top of the hill. He didn't want to be the
biggest he just wanted to figure out how to make Walmart the best in the world and there
is a funny story about him in 1986 when he was touring Brazil or when he was in vacation
or something, he found himself being arrested by the police and taken to jail and when his
friends came to bail him out and at this point this guy is almost a billionaire he is running
a billion-dollar empire and one of the richest man in America and the Brazilian police have
arrested him and his friends were confounded what happened what did you do how did you
get arrested? And the reason why you got arrested was that he was out in the store and he had
a measuring tape and stuff and he was bending he was like crawling under the shelf and taking
measurements and trying to figure out how these guys had put their merchandise out what
they had done what was the edge how did they figure it out and so he was taking measurements
crawling getting himself dirty he didn't care he always carried with himself A pen and a
yellow note sheet like a paper where he would take notes just to constantly take note on
improving because he had this passion to compete to improve to become the best. The funny thing
is in Brazil what happened was when the store employee saw him crawling around the store
they called in the police and the police came and arrested him. That just goes to show even
as a billionaire he did not stop. He wasn't going to give up just because that was his
passion that was his life he wanted to figure it out so whatever it is that you are doing
that you were trying to figure out hopefully it is just as exciting to you that you're
going to keep on doing it that you're going to keep on going on you're going to keep figuring
it out. And former CEO of Walmart said, Sam Walton was willing to take risks. He was less
afraid of failure than anyone else he knew. The key idea here is for Sam Walton it wasn't
about failure it was about trying, trying to figure it out doing all these experiments
to figure it out and then just going after it to compete to become the very best he knew
he had to try to he had to possibly fail in the process.So what is the next key important
idea in this book or in his own personal story? He worked really really hard 16 hours a day
seven days a week from the first time he started the Ben Franklin store at the age of 27 he's
been doing retail 16 hours a day seven days a week for all his life very few vacations
very few long vacations where he would just remove from the store. On Saturdays he would
go to the store at two or three in the morning just so he could go over the numbers before
he met with his executive team that is how dedicated he was and on most days he was in
office at 4:30 AM. Here is this guy who was at some point A billionaire super successful
going to office at 4:30 AM going to the office at 2 AM 3 AM Saturday's going over numbers
that's dedication, that's Hard work extreme hard work.The next idea and one of the other
important kind of paradoxical idea he says is that in order for Walmart to grow big he
had to think small and what he meant was that if they started thinking like a big company
if they started being complacent and if they started thinking we're a $50 billion empire
and this small thing doesn't matter and that small thing doesn't matter then that would
be the end of Walmart. So they treated every store like it was just one store and it had
to be successful and they had to figure it out. What Sam Walton says is the reason they
became successful and the reason they got big was by never acting like they were big
by never acting like they were too big to do something or too big to fail or never acting
like a really big corporation and he has a few key ideas on what it means to think small
on what it means to incorporate being small in your business. In his business it was take
one store at a time don't think about the hundred or thousand stores out there and try
to create success for all of them all the time but take one store that time in your
case maybe take one customer at a time when request at a time. Your startup that you're
trying to figure it out you're an entrepreneur you're hustling one thing at a time one startup
at a time one customer at a time.The other idea was you have to keep your ear to the
ground. You have to understand what are the ongoing challenges what are the issues what
is happening in and around the business in and around the whole empire they have to keep
your ears on the ground and push responsibility or authority down as much as possible because
that allows you to grow the people and also allow you to think small. Another way to think
small or to really make sure that you're always on the small end of the spectrum stay lean
cut out the bureaucracy and of course things have changed a lot since Sam Walton has left
the company but still Walmart is one of the greatest retailers one of the most successful
retailers in
the world.