My dad was a dentist and he moved us across the state of Arkansas to open a dental practice, and then told me to get to work to pay for college and the highest paying job in Bentonville, Arkansas in 1984 was Walmart Warehouse at $6.50 an hour compared to McDonald's at $3.35, so I chose Walmart.

Today, Walmart employs about 2.1 million associates. The vast majority of our management team started as an hourly, just like I did. If you walked around here, not just here in Arkansas, but around our company, you would find a lot of people with more than 20 years of service, and you'd find a lot of people who've joined the company to climb up the ladder and create opportunities for themselves.

Don't take your current job for granted; the next job doesn't come if you don't do the one you've got, well.

Volunteer for something extra, volunteer for something hard. One of the reasons that I got the opportunities that I got was that I would raise my hand when my boss was out of town and he or she was visiting stores or something, and someone needed to pinch hit and go to a meeting, I would go, and if I knew the answer to the question that came up, I'd share it, if I didn't, I'd say, "I don't know, but I'll find out fast and get back to you." I then put myself in an environment where I became a low risk promotion because people had already seen me do the job.

I went to graduate school and paid good money to get an education that's worth something, but I learned more in the first six months at Walmart than I learned in 5 1/2 years of post-secondary education.

Look around at things that just aren't getting done. Maybe there's a project you could tackle. Maybe there's an issue that always gets back-burnered for other priorities. Challenge yourself to take on those difficult assignments. They're learning opportunities, and you have a chance to change something for the better.