Numerous people now want to succeed, are eager to succeed, and put in one point of effort hoping to have a ten point return tomorrow. The entire society is in a state of impatience, and no one stops to think seriously about what mindset to have and what steps to take to do things.
How do you make a big thing from an early age? Some people think it depends on luck and opportunity, others think it depends on relationships and resources, others think it depends on family and background, but these are all external factors. By reading Sam’s biography, we can see some of the internal factors that make a person need to do a lot of things.
The first element is starting with the small, insignificant things. When Sam took over a small, money-losing grocery store in Newport, he didn’t think he could do so much in the future. When he was evicted by a jealous landlord because the store was booming, he had to start with nothing in a small town, Bentonville. When Sam started his business, there were only 3,000 people in town. It is hard to imagine that in such a small place the world’s largest chain could be born, and at one point the chain was number one in the Fortune 500.
The second element is loving what you do. “Love makes everything happen,” is a phrase that anyone in business should remember. From the beginning, we could feel that Sam loved what he did, he loved retail, he loved selling things, and he loved selling things to customers at cheaper prices.” He has been doing this all his life, indulging in it. In his life, there were hardly any weekends or holidays, and he was always flying his little plane from store to store to see what his subordinates had to offer to sell things to customers. There was one thing many people thought was not worth investing in, and he spent his whole life on it, only to be richly rewarded.
The third element is that there must be an irreplaceable core competency. When Sam opened the chain, America was already crowded with stores. Sam captured only one of the main points: if things are sold cheaply enough, people will come and buy them. To make his stores cheap enough, Sam tried to skip the middleman and deal directly with suppliers; stayed in motels on business trips, squeezing a few people into a room; always chose economy class when flying, even though he later became the richest man in the world; and had a small, narrow office that resembled a storage room. He did this to save money, to save on operating expenses, and ultimately to allow customers to buy the cheapest goods while making the company profitable.
The fourth element is to have a spirit of constant exploration. Any rigid thinking or determined behavior is the enemy of success. Sam has been exploring promotions from the beginning, and is ecstatic when any front-line employee comes up with a new promotional idea. By the time the city taunted the rednecks, Sam had quietly turned Wal-Mart into the first chain brand to take over a small town in America. Sam never left the business. He was always hanging out in his own stores and going to other people’s stores to inspire his own business ideas and business philosophies through the first place of understanding.
The fifth element is having a good mindset. In Sam’s view, a good mindset has two aspects. On the one hand, no matter how big the company is, Sam always sees himself as an entrepreneur, not a winner. Even after becoming the richest man, he still thinks about how to make the company healthy and growing every day, rather than relying on the huge amount of wealth he already has. Sam, on the other hand, always saw himself as a hard-working, hard-working ordinary man. He never thought about how smart he was or how good he was.” The day before he died, he was talking to a small store manager. After making a fortune in the market, he was still living quietly in his old house in town, driving his old car and flying his old plane. We find that many successful people, regardless of their wealth and social status, stay true to who they are. We see this in Sam, Warren Buffett and Li Ka-shing. “Life is for one big thing”, everyone has one big thing waiting for you in your life, but this big thing is made by yourself, from insignificant and small things, not given to you by God. Think about it: where is the big event of our life?