But, as Walton saw it, it wasn’t his fault that local competition is put out of business when a Walmart comes to town. After all, the customers are free to choose where to shop, and if they choose Walmart, it must be because they feel their needs are better met there than at local stores. A winning mentality and letting go of your own mistakes or achievements, for that matter, can take you far away - “To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.”

What could have been a big loss turned into a big win because they got creative and had a bias towards action. Take action to fix problems. Recognize Associates: If an associate did something worthy of recognition, they were invited to the Saturday meeting and then also publicly recognized. For those of you that don't feel so glowing about Wal-Mart, realize that this was written over 20 years ago. Part of the purpose of the book, according to the opening chapter, was to be a reminder to his family why he started the business, and the values that were important to him and Wal-Mart's success.Taking the job away from Mayer when he was the CEO was a risky move. Nobody takes demotions from a power position lightly. I often read biographies to learn more about how other successful people started their journey. After I finished like 40% of the book he already had founded Walmart and opened hundreds of stores (and bought an airplane). I'm missing more of the youth part and struggles here. Samuel Moore Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He lived there with his parents on their farm until 1923. However, farming did not provide enough money to raise a family, and Thomas Walton went into farm mortgaging. He worked for his brother's Walton Mortgage Company, which was an agent for Metropolitan Life Insurance, [3] [4] where he foreclosed on farms during the Great Depression. [5] Trimble, Vance H. (1991). Sam Walton: the Inside Story of America's Richest Man. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-451-17161-0.

Sam Walton was born in 1918, to a lower-class family in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. The Waltons didn’t have much but Sam’s parents made sure he was taken care of.At a young age, Sam Walton helped his mother in the milk business. He would milk the cow and then go out and sell the bottled milk. He made sure their big competitors like Kmart never sold a product for a lower price than Walmart, not even by a penny.