Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.
I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they’ve been.
If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.
Lose your smile and lose your customers.
I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high.
You can’t just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.
Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
If I had to single out one element in my life that has made a difference for me, it would be a passion to compete.
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.
Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.
I’ve owned about 18 airplanes over the years, and I’ve never bought one of them new.
If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them – not that they are working for you.
After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart’s phenomenal success has been that very tendency.
Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.
I guess in all my years, what I heard more than anything else was: a mere town cannot support a discount store for very long.
I’d still say that visiting the stores and listening to our folks was one of the most valuable uses of my time as an executive. But really, our best ideas usually do come from the folks in the stores. Period.
There’s absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary, working people can accomplish if they’re given the opportunity and encouragement to do their best.
There are only four things in life that matter. The first is happiness and I’ll sell you the other three for a dollar.