“Do you know, one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas. “ Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady
I was flipping through the Forbes magazine recently and I came across an article that I want to discuss with you today. Sometimes Forbes can send me off in a completely different direction than high finance and that is what happened this week. It was the top 10 richest women in the world for 2022 written by Rachel Sandler. I was curious to see the achievements of these women. Here is the list in order: Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to the L’Oreal fortune, Alice Walton, heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune, Julia Koch, widow and heiress of David Koch, Mackenzie Scott, divorcee and heiress to the Amazon fortune, Jacqueline Mars, heiress of the Mars candy fortune, Gina Rinehart, heiress of the Hancock Prospecting Group, an Australian mining and agriculture group, Miriam Adelson, widow and heiress Sheldon Adelson from the Las Vegas Sands, Susanne Klatten heiress of Herbert Quandt of BMW, Iris Fontbona, widow and heiress of Chilean Andronico Luksic of Antofagasta, a mining and beverage conglomerate, and Abigail Johnson who has been CEO of Fidelity Investments since taking over for her father making her an heiress as well. So for those of you counting that is inheritance, inheritance, waited for death, divorce, inheritance, inheritance, inheritance, waited for death, waited for death, and inheritance. Well, they all inherited their money, but I didn’t like what I was reading so I did some digging of my own to find women that were successful on their own, women of achievement.
I’d first like to discuss Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift and at the risk of upsetting the bee hive, the little Monsters or the Taylor park, these women have achieved, they have achieved immense success and have gathered the eyeballs of attention upon themselves and are incredibly talented, successful, and rich. They are also household names and they have mastered their crafts, becoming popular with likes and follows, and creating feelings. They make their audiences feel something through music, production, wardrobe changes, and sexual liberation. Despite their success, it leads me to ask if they could have been as successful if they weren’t dancing around in their skivvies? Can you imagine these ladies performing in a turtleneck, a below the knee skirt and a pair of flats? I imagine their success would be slightly less. The fact is that these women specialize in skin much as a dermatologist does. I would instead like to look at the careers of three ladies that have mastered their crafts and became the unquestioned icons in their area of pursuit. Not that the musicians mentioned don’t work hard, have talent or ambition, but the ladies we are going to discuss today have risen to their pinnacles of their professions without jiggling, flaunting, shaking, gyrating, undressing, or dancing. No, these ladies are more the Sunday school discussion types in professions where hard work, discipline, and achievement are prized more highly than likes or views.
The first lady performs in a swimsuit and a swim cap. C Thomas, you just said that these ladies wouldn’t be showing skin. Her suit is not a two piece barely there boobie buoyancy device made for lawn chairs, but well think of her suit as a neoprene shell casing because she swims like a bullet. She wears googles that make her look like a very aerodynamic Kareem Abdul Jabbar. She burst onto the scene by winning the gold medal in the 800 meter freestyle in the 2012 London Olympics, one of her 7 Olympic gold medals. She broke Michael Phelps’ record and now has 21 individual world championship gold medals and is the only swimmer to win 6 world championships gold medals in the same event, her specialty the 800-meter freestyle. Okeke Joshua writes for Sportkeeda, “She has established herself as such a dominant force in the 800-meter freestyle category that the last time she faced defeat in the class was when she was just 13 years old.” She is 26. 13 years and counting of never losing a race. Her streak reminds me of Edwin Moses who didn’t lose in the 400m meter hurdles for 122 races spanning 10 years only her streak is longer and still going. Only with persistence, discipline, and hard work is such an accomplishment achieved. She has the 29 fastest times in history. She has broken 16 world records. She is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in psychology and is a role model for men and women of achievement around the world. Her name of course is Katie Ledecky.
The next lady is also an Olympic Gold Medalist and she competes in a different outfit, but one that also serves as a casing for a bullet as she explodes down the slopes. She wears a helmet meaning she does her legendary work without us being able to see her face. She is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history at just 18 years of age. She is a 4-time world cup champion in slalom and a 7 time winner of the World Cup discipline in that event. She has won 55 slalom races, the most by any alpine skier in any discipline. In 2021, she became the first skier, male or female, to win gold at 5 straight world championships, and in 2023 she made it 6. In 2019, she broke the record for most wins in a world Cup season with 17, breaking the mark of 14 that had stood for 30 years. In a sport where one mistake can be season or even career ending, she has managed to re-write the record book. In March of 2023, She overtook Ingemar Stenmark for most World Cup wins by any alpine skier, a record once thought untouchable due to eras. She is the current and reigning overall World Cup Champion. She is a 5-time overall World Cup Champion. Like Katie Ledecky her career is still going. Her name of course is Mikaela Shiffrin.
Katie and Mickaela are both young and like the three female singers their careers are still on going. I could certainly continue with a Simone Biles or Lydia Ko both true superstars in their respective fields but while athletic achievement is notable, let us search for a different kind of achievement requiring the same mental skills as these champions, but played out in a different arena.
This lady could probably and possibly did conduct her daily business in a turtleneck, skirt below the knee, and flats. Robyn Murray wrote a special about this lady for USA today telling part of her story. She was born in Russia in 1893 into a Jewish family and was one of eight children, in area that is now Belarus. At 13, she left home to find work and by 16, she was supervising 6 men at a dry goods store. I’m first amazed that kids left home at 13 in sharp contrast to kids today and I’m even more amazed at her amazing competence to be able to assume a managerial position over adults at such a young age. The beauty of business is that competence wins, not athletic talent, not age, and not bluster. It was difficult for Jews in Russian at that time. At that time there were pgorms, or violence toward Jews or other ethnic minorities, which included destruction of property, looting, or even murder so she fled east with plans to relocate to America. She left Russia after telling a crossing guard she would be back with a bottle of vodka for him. She never returned and went first into China and then to Japan where she boarded a peanut cargo ship and sailed to Seattle where she landed not knowing a single word of English. The American Red Cross helped her relocate to Iowa where her husband was located, and they eventually moved to Omaha where there was a Jewish community where they settled. She had married at 20 and once in Omaha her husband opened a used clothing store which he ran poorly. After almost 20 years of supporting his efforts, now in her mid-40s, she finally started a business of her own with a stake from her brother in the depths of the Great Depression.
She used that $500 and $1500 credit to start a furniture store in her husband’s store’s basement. The 4’10” executive had a simple business model “Tell the truth, buy right, and sell cheap.” She used this model to great effect. She could not read or write and used nothing but common sense. Her business grew quickly, and over the years made it through every business cycle and now Nebraska Furniture Mart is the largest home furnishing store in North America. They sell furniture, flooring, appliances, and electronics. In 1983, this lady sold the majority share of her company to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway in a $60 million one page handshake deal.
Warren Buffet once said this about her. “Put her up against the top graduates of the top business schools or chief executives of the Fortune 500,” Buffet said. “She’d run rings around them.” He also tells the story that when her family sat down for dinner every night they would sing “God Bless America” every night before eating. This little firebrand of an entrepreneur had no inherited advantages, fled persecution, came to a new country without knowing the language, didn’t get started until she was 44, started a business in the darkest economic environment in US history, and was grateful enough for her gifts to sing before every evening meal, and then kicked the country’s ass in the furniture business for the next 60 years. Her name of course is Rose Blumkin, but she went by Mrs. B.
Unlike the heiresses, the pop culture dermatologists, athletes, and Mrs. B. all possessed amazing determination to succeed, they possessed the discipline to work hard every day, and they all achieved unbelievable excellence and are fine examples for both men and women to learn from. Inspiration is a funny thing, it can take all shapes and sizes. These three women are far more interesting to me than the heiresses despite not showing any skin. But showing some skin sells, so be on the lookout for the next C Thomas Printer swimsuit calendar entitled “Wrinkles and Reasonable”.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
The Dow Jones finished trading at …. 37,361
The 10 year Treasury bond is at …4.04%
The price of Brent Crude is …77.83
The price of gold is …2,034
The price of silver is …23.08
Thank you for listening today and you can find all of our articles and more on our website cthomasprinter.com.
USA Today Woman of the Century