Jimmy Pattison: Building a $16B Empire Without Connections, Capital, or Credentials [Outliers]
Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player
It's May eighth, nineteen forty five. Germany has just surrendered. It's the biggest news story of the century. Teenage James Patison invests his life savings, all$15 at the time, in 500 newspapers. By seven a.m. he's stuck with three hundred and fifty copies nobody wants.
Radio has already broadcast every detail. He's selling yesterday's news. Most kids would eat the laws. Jimmy drives to the suburbs and knocks on doors, only he's not selling newspapers anymore. He's selling souvenir editions of Victory in Europe Day.
He sells every last copy. Eighty years later, that newspaper still hangs in his office, not as a reminder of the war's end. but has proof the principle that would make him Canada's fourth richest person. When markets shift under your feet, don't change your effort. Change your story.
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