Sam Walton

• America's bargain billionaire
• sold things cheaper and changed the way we shopped
• never thought about anything except growing and building Wal-Mart
• largest fortune in America
• Born on March 29, 1918
• His fathers job was to evict people from their farms
• he was an active child, at age 3 he wandered out of his home and down to the school to listen to the teachers for hours
• 1933, the dustbowl struck
• his family moved from town to town looking for work, and developed an outgoing personality from changing schools
• Sam contributed to the family by selling m ilk to families
• Sam joined boy scouts and gained skills that made him a local hero
• saved a persons life and was promoted to Eagles, was the youngest person to do so
• sam was vice president of the junior class, and played almost every sport and was very competitive
• Fall 1936, entered uni as a economist major
• sam went to work full time after graduatioin and was paid 75$ a month
• was helped by JC Penny himself
• sam was eagr to get into the army
• october 28, 1944 is when he had his first child
• Sam buys Ben Franklin store stock with $5000
• found  a way to beat his rivals by using a popcorn machine
• selling twice as much popcorn than the opponent across the street
• within 3 years he paid off the loan of his father i n law
• Sam almost gave up and said he wanted to work for Sears
• the landlord was renewing sam's store and lost his store but Sam shruged it off and kept on going
• Sam and his family moved to Bentonville and insisted on a 99 year lease
• Sam had 4 children, 3 boys, 1 girl
• He was the head of the rotary club
• eager to keep prices down and shopping traffic up
• in just one year, sales tripled
• Fayetterville Drug was his competition, amd was right beside his store
• by 1960 it was the largest retail store in America
• bought a plane to let him be able to visit any store at any time
• he thought even lower prices would make him even more money
• went in for 95% of investment
• no one could take sam seriously because they thought he would fail again
• bought ownership on the bank
• built 2 stores per year
• wished he spent more time with his children
• died in 1992

Summary: i think Sams mentor was JC Penny. He got his passion from his desire to learn. The key learning's were never to give up, believe in your own business more than anyone else, and to do the best you can.