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.

I've always been driven to buck the system.

Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.

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.

High expectations is the key to everything.

One thing my and mother and dad shared completely was their approach to money - they just didn't spend it.

You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.