This tribute commemorates Sam's Walton's 50-year leadership legacy and shares50 of his best leadership practices.

Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun cloth of America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century, Sam never lost the common touch. Here, finally, inimitable words. Genuinely modest, but always sure if his ambitions and achievements. Sam shares his thinking in a candid, straight-from-the-shoulder style. In a story rich with anecdotes and the "rules of the road" of both Main Street and Wall Street, Sam Walton chronicles the inspiration, heart, and optimism that propelled him to lasso the American Dream.

As a former employee, Bergdhal had the opportunity to see the Wal-Mart executive team in action and to work directly with Sam Walton. This unique perspective provides him with a treasure trove of great lessons and stories from behind the scenes.

Since Sam Walton's death in 1992, Wal-Mart has gone from being the largest retailer in the world to holding the top spot on the Fortune 500 list as the largest company in the world. Don Soderquist, who was senior vice chairman during that time, played a crucial role in that success. Sam Walton said, "I tried for almost twenty years to hire Don Soderquist . . . But when we really needed him later on, he finally joined up and made a great chief operating officer." Responsible for overseeing many of Wal-Mart's key support divisions, including real estate, human resources, information systems, logistics, legal, corporate affairs, and loss prevention, Soderquist stayed true to his Christian values as well as Wal-Mart's distinct management style. "Probably no other Wal-Mart executive since the legendary Sam Walton has come to embody the principles of the company's culture-or to represent them within the industry-as has Don Soderquist," Discount Store News once reported. In The Wal-Mart Way, Soderquist shares his story of helping lead a global company from being a $43 billion company to one that would eventually exceed $200 billion. Several books have been written about Wal-Mart's success, but none by the ones who were the actual players. It was more than "Everyday Low Prices" and distribution that catapulted the company to the top. The core values based on Judeo-Christian principles-and maintained by leaders such as Soderquist-are the real reason for Wal-Mart's success.

It would be difficult to overstate the impact Sam Walton had on American business, specifically retailing. The standalone box stores he pioneered have quite literally changed the nation’s landscape. His innovations in supply-chain management and distribution totally reshaped the relationship between suppliers and retailers, and, for the most part, took wholesalers out of the equation. His insistence on low prices altered customers’ expectations of what they will have to pay for everything from socks to soda. Like few business leaders before or since, Sam Walton changed the world. Saturday, August 14, 1964 was a broiling hot day in Harrison, Arkansas--but the heat was the last thing on Sam Walton’s mind. For the 46-year-old Walton, this was a big day: the grand opening of his second Wal-Mart. He was going to make damn sure it was a big success. He’d planned everything. In the parking lot, he’d had two truckloads of watermelons delivered and hired a donkey to provide rides for the kids. He headed outside to greet his first customers. What he saw would make most entrepreneurs lose their cool: The watermelons had burst, and donkey dung littered the lot. Walton’s reaction was emblematic of his ability to rise above any challenge. He ignored the mess, smiled, walked up to the crowd, stuck out his hand, and said, “Welcome to Wal-Mart.” That focus on customers is Walton’s prime leadership lesson. But there are many others, beginning with his obsession with low prices--just the first step in a mission to deliver unbeatable value.... New Word City, publishers of digital originals, contributes 10 percent of its profits to literacy causes.

The story of a department-store trainee who became the richest man in America and owner of the biggest retail store in the world: Walmart. Sam Walton used the money he earned in the army, along with some financial help from his family, to open his first store. Then he opened fourteen more. Then Sam had an even bigger idea. He wanted to build large stores in small towns and reduce the price of everything they stocked. Although other businessmen and potential partners laughed at him, this entrepreneur with humble beginnings used his resourcefulness to create Walmart, which would become the largest company in the world.

A biography of Sam Walton and how he rose from an impoverished childhood to become the richest man in America.