The year before Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys, the team lost $9 million.

And just a few years later, the Cowboys were making over $30 million in profit per year.

In fact, in the middle of this turnaround, the book describes Jerry Jones as a ruthless cost cutter.

A few weeks ago, I was telling you about Ingbar Camprad, who's the founder of IKEA,

starts IKEA when he's 17, works on it until he dies at 91 years old. And Invar wrote a document,

which they call the IKEA Company Bible. It's actually called the name of the document. It's

the testament of a furniture dealer. I loved it so much. I actually had it printed and bound

and put it on my

desk. But in that document, Invar repeated something. It was very fascinating. He said for six

decades, that cost awareness was IKEA's anthem. And he said that his dedication to that idea

was total. The way that Ingvar spoke about that sounds a lot like the way Sam Walton talked about

his cost control and his manic frenzy for cost control and his autobiography. This is what

Sam Walton wrote. He said, I'm asked today when Walmart has been so successful, when we're a

$50 billion plus company. Why should we say so cheap? That's simple.

Because we believe in the value of a dollar.

We exist to provide value to our customers, which means that in addition to quality

and service, we have to save them money.

Every time Walmart spends $1 foolishly, it comes right out of the pockets of our customers.

Every time we save them a dollar, that puts us one more

step ahead of the competition, which is where we always plan to be. He continues, control your

expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find a competitive advantage

for 25 years running. Long before Walmart was known as the nation's largest retailer,

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