It's the 1950s in Omaha.
Three well -paid mohawk carpet attorneys square off against a 4 foot 10 immigrant widow named Rose Blumpkin, they accuse her of one outrageous act, selling carpet at prices ordinary people can afford. I picture her standing there adjusting her glasses then telling the judge in a thick Russian accent, judge I sell everything 10 % above cost. What's wrong with giving my customers a good deal?
I know what it's like to be poor." Silence.
And then the gavel comes down.
Case dismissed. The next morning that same judge walks into Rose's basement store and buys $1400 worth of carpet.
It's the first of many miracles at Nebraska Furniture Mark.
Miracles born of one stubborn motto, Sell cheap, tell the truth, don't cheat the customer.
How did this penniless refugee build a billion dollar empire, and why did Warren Buffett later say he'd rather wrestle Grizzlies than compete with Miss B?
Let's find out. Welcome to the Knowledge Project.
I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best what other people have already figured out.
In a world where MBA programs teach complex business strategies and consultants sell elaborate frameworks, one woman built an empire by taking three simple ideas very seriously.
Sell cheap, tell the truth, don't cheat the customer.
When the world's greatest investor, Warren Buffett met Rose Bumpkin, he said simply, I'd rather wrestle Grizzlies than compete with Miss B.
She arrived in America as a penniless immigrant who couldn't read English, fleeing Russia with just $66 in her purse after lying to a border guard about vodka.
At 43, at an age when most people settled into their careers, she borrowed $500 from her brother and opened a furniture store in her basement.
What followed was extraordinary.
Although she never spent a day in school and stood just 4 foot 10, Rose could calculate complex carpet measurements instantly in her head, beating salesmen with calculators every time.
She could detect a diluted shipment by touch alone.
She survived the depression, rebuilt after a devastating fire, and when a tornado flattened her store, she built it back bigger.
Then, at 96 years old, she quit, started a competing business across the street, and was so effective her family had to buy her out.
This is the story of Rose Blumkin, a woman who revolutionized retail by never forgetting what it was like to be poor.
The research for this episode comes mostly from women of Berkshire and oral history interviews with Rose Blumkin and her daughter, Frances.
Stick around at the end for my reflections on how her deceptively simple principles might transform your own approach to business and life.
It's time to listen and learn.
This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
In 1893, in a village near Minsk, Russia, Rose Gorylick was born into a life of modest means.
Home was a two -room log cabin where she and seven siblings slept on straw mats.
Her father, a rabbi, devoted himself mostly to religious study while her mother supported the family by running a small general store.
One night six -year -old Rose awoke to find her mother washing clothes and baking bread in the darkness, preparing for the next day.
Something in that moment crystallized in her mind.
When I grew up, the little girl told her mother, you're not going to work so hard. I can't stand it.
The way you work day and night.
When I grew up, I'm going to get a job.
I'm going to earn money.
I'm going to go to America.
And when I go to America, I'm going to make more money, get another job and send for you and the whole family.
While boys received education, Rose was absorbing business fundamentals in her mother's store.
On an errand to the village shop, she noticed the shopkeeper's calculation error.
She told him, Mr. Prost, you made a mistake in one copic, one cent.
He responded, just a minute, little girl, I'll redo the addition.
Sure enough, he said, you know what, you're right, I overcharged you one copic.
Later at the synagogue, he told everyone, here's a six -year -old child who in her head was speed had the total before I ever had it At 13 Rose made an extraordinary decision.
With new shoes slung over her shoulder to preserve their souls, she walked barefoot barefoot for 18 miles to the nearest train station heading to GOMO three hundred miles away.
Once there she went door -to -door seeking work.
You're a kid one store owner said dismissively.
I'm not a beggar Rose shot back.
With just four cents in her pocket she asked for a place to sleep that night.
Tomorrow, I go to work, she promised.
The owner relented.
Before dawn she was cleaning the store.
By sixteen, she was managing it and supervising six married men.
In 1914, Rose married Isadore Blumpkin.
Their wedding feast was just two pounds of rice and two pounds of cookies provided by her mother.
When World War I erupted, Isadore fled to America to avoid conscription, leaving Rose behind for three years.
In 1917, Rose made her escape without a passport.
At the Chinese -Siberian border, when confronted by a soldier, she improvised, I am on the way to buy leather for the army, when I come back I'll bring you a big bottle of vodka.
I suppose she later laughed.
He's still there waiting for his vodka.
After a six week voyage on a freighter, she reached Seattle with no entry permit.
If you were healthy, you got in, she later recalled, and healthy I was.
She had 200 rubles, about 66 dollars in her purse.
The Red Cross helped her locate her husband Isidore in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
There, despite the language barrier, she was overwhelmed by the kindness of Americans.
I never knew such good people.
How they treated me, she recalled.
The friendship, the devotion, the goodness.
I thought that anyone in this country is the luckiest one in the world.
For many immigrants, this reunion would be the happy ending.
For Rose Blumpkin, it was just the beginning.
After a brief stay in Iowa, where their first daughter Frances was born, the Blumpkins moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
There was a large community of Russian and Yiddish speakers there, which Rose hoped would ease her isolation while she struggled to learn English.
In Omaha, Isadore opened a secondhand clothing store while Rose began running a household with growing children.
By 1922, they had saved enough to bring Rose's family over from Russia, her parents, brothers, sisters, and a cousin, and they all put down roots in Omaha, several living in the Blumkin household.
But then came the Great Depression.
One day in 1930, Isadore came home from his store distraught.
We'll starve to death.
Nobody walks in. What will we do?
It was at this moment that Rose Blumkin, homemaker and mother of four step forward to transform their fortunes.
You buy a pair of shoes for $3, sell them for $3 .30, she told her husband.
Let's sell 10 % over cost and I'll come to the store to help you because I did big business in Russia for my boss and I knew business.
And she certainly did.
As her daughter recalled years later, she had, a store.
Israel had been selling shotguns because America had a hunting culture.
But in the depression, when people were having trouble affording food, no one could afford to buy a shotgun.
So Rose ran a bold ad in the newspaper, shotguns for rent, it was $3 and a $25 deposit.
There was a line around the block the next day.
She was a natural with an instinct for what the market needed before others saw it.
If a customer came in and said what they needed, in any way, Rose would go get it for them.
they'd be asking her where to get it and she'd say i can get it i can get it for you wholesale i have a wholesale house and she did it was an ally behind her husband's store and as her daughter recalls she would go there take a coat that cost 10 and believe it or not she might sell it for 11 or 12 not at the retail price the wholesale people were starving so they were happy to do it actually that's the way she started to become known wherever she felt she could make even a dime she would do it no opportunity was too small no customer too insignificant.
She started selling home furnishings right from her own house.
Visitors would come and find furniture with attached price tags and lampshades still covered in plastic wrap.
If a guest was admiring something, it was available for purchase on the spot.
By 1937, Rose had grown tired of the constant gloom of the Depression.
With a $500 loan from one of her brothers, she opened a basement store beneath Isadore's shop.
She called it Nebraska Furniture Merc.
The same day I opened, February 7th, another furniture store was opening, she recalled.
They had orchestra, music and Hollywood stars, and I only had a three line, want ads because I was poor.
I did big business.
I couldn't get over it.
It's worth pausing here to consider something we've observed repeatedly in our series on outliers.
The best people often relish the worst times.
As John D Rockefeller said, they feed during the depressions.
I think of this as a taste for salt water, that is, an ability to take pain.
Rose was doing all of this during the depression, her advantage wasn't just talent, it was an ability to push through the discomfort that others choose to ignore.
Rose Blumpkin's business model was the essence of taking a few simple ideas and taking them seriously.
Selling 10 % above costs, going the extra mile for customers, and growing through volume, or more bluntly in her words, sell cheap, tell the truth, don't cheat people.
It's worth pausing just for a second here.
Sell cheap, tell the truth, don't cheat people.
These are simple ideas that are so basic that they often get overlooked.
But Charlie Munger had a rule that works wonders in business, science and life.
Take a simple, basic idea and take it very seriously.
Most mornings I start my day with a smoothie.
It's a secret recipe the kids and I call the Tom Brady.
I actually shared the full recipe in episode 191 with Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
One thing that hasn't changed since then, protein is a must. These days, I build my foundation around what Momentus calls the Momentus 3, Protein, Creatine, and Omega 3s.
I take them daily because they support everything, focus, energy, recovery, and long -term health.
Most people don't get enough of any of these things through diet alone.
What makes Momentus different is their quality.
their whey protein isolate is grass -fed, their creatine uses CreaPure, the purest form available, and their omega -3s are sourced for maximum bioavailability, so your body actually uses what you take.
No fillers, no artificial ingredients, just what your body needs, backed by science.
Head to LiveMomentis .com, and use code knowledgeproject for 35 % off your first subscription.
That's code knowledgeproject at LiveMomentis .com for 35 % off your first subscription.
There used to be days I'd open my inbox and feel buried like I was digging through noise just to find the signal.
Important messages got lost, my focus slipped, and I started feeling like I was managing email more than running my business.
As someone who values productivity above almost anything else, that just wasn't sustainable.
Since I've switched to Notion Mail everything's changed.
Notion Mail is the inbox that thinks like you.
It's automated, personalized and flexible to finally work the way that you work.
With AI that learns what matters to you, it can organize your inbox, label messages, draft replies and even schedule meetings.
No manual sorting required.
Now the emails that matter rise to the top.
I write faster with content blocks and AI prompts, the polish or draft replies in seconds and it integrates seamlessly with my Notion workspace space, so I have full context right where I need it.
Plus, Notion is trusted by over half of Fortune 500 companies.
If those are the people that you're looking to compete with, start upgrading for free to Notion Mail.
Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion .com slash knowledge project, and try the inbox that thinks like you.
That's all lowercase letters.
Notion dot com slash knowledge project to get Notion Mail for free right now.
When you use our link you're supporting our show too.
Notion dot com slash knowledge project.
One of the basic ideas Rose is employing is a win -win approach. There are four basic permutations of any relationship, win -lose, win -win, lose -lose, and lose -win.
But only one of these permutations can survive across time.
We all know what it feels like to be taken advantage of and when we perceive a person or store as taking advantage of us, we stop dealing with them at the first moment we can.
However, when we feel like we're getting a good deal, we We develop trust, and we want to work with them again and again.
So Rose understood the short -term sacrifice of less profit today would be more than made up for in volume and customer goodwill that would come later.
She was playing a long -term game with her customers and the only long -term game across any relationship, kids, parents, partners, colleagues, customer suppliers, literally any relationship in your life.
There's only one permutation that survives.
That's win -win. Okay, back to our story.
During World War II she appeared not just to a customer's brain and wallet, but also to their heart.
When a soldier came in, looking for a table and chairs for his new family mentioning that his wife just had a baby but they couldn't afford a crib, Rose didn't hesitate.
Because you're going to fight for our country, you're going off to war, I'm going to give you the crib.
For Rose, it was a natural instinct.
When a young couple furnished their first apartment, seeing what for them was a significant sum, Rose would often add, you're renting a new apartment, You bought all this from me, you were so nice.
You came to me to buy, you trust me, I'm going to give you a present.
A lamp. Yet, Rose was nobody's fool, she could spot a freeloader like no one else.
She didn't target customers.
Now, what do you want?
Where do you work? When can you pay me?
If satisfied, she'd declare I trust you.
Maybe times are hard, I know you're going to pay me.
And pay they did, returning year after year bringing family, friends, neighbors, even coworkers.
Rose turned these customers into scouts.
You want that bedroom set, she'd ask.
Go to the downtown store, tell me exactly what they charge, give me all the numbers.
They'd return from her competitors downtown reporting, I saw this Haymarket -Wayfield bedroom set and it was $200.
She'd sell it to them for $100 knowing her cost structure gave her that flexibility.
Word spread like wildfire.
The massive strategic air command base nearby became a powerful source of customers.
New officers arriving at Omaha would ask, where should I buy furniture?
and invariably here you go to Nebraska furniture mart and see Miss Blumkin.
Her daughter recalls with amazement how far this reputation had traveled.
Lord and Lady Evans from Stratcom came to town.
He had heard about the store, he came in and they had to furnish a house, and they bought all their furniture.
Soon they were shipping furniture to Hawaii, Guam, even Israel with customers purchasing from Mississippi sight unseen, based on reputation alone.
But Rose's approach made the established Omaha retailers furious because they weren't just losing customers.
They were being exposed.
Everyday customers were coming in not to buy but to see their prices and then heading over to Nebraska Furniture Mart to see Miss B.
When she went to Chicago's merchandise Mart to buy furniture wholesale she encountered the full force of entrenched interest such as brandies and Rogers, huge department store competitors at the time.
The merchants were very rotten to me she recalled when I walked in merchandise marked to buy furniture they used to kick me out and say don't bother us we're not gonna sell to you nothing Brandeis and Rogers won't let us sell you anything.
Her face would redden with anger and humiliation but then she would make a promise to herself someday you'll come to my store and try to sell to me and I'll kick you out the same way that you did to me then she would add with quiet satisfaction years later and my wish came true.
With the wholesale route blocked, Rose got creative.
She found retailers in other cities willing to sell to her just at above their cost. She managed to convince Marshall Fields to sell her carpet wholesale at $3 per yard. She resold it for $3 .95, while competitors charged $7 .95 for the identical carpet!
They called her a bootlegger for these tactics!
You bet ya, she would reply, I'm the best bootlegger in town.
It was after this bootlegger incident that she was hauled into court by the three lawyers for Mohawk carpet who sued her for what they called unfair trade practices.
Rose made her case to the judge saying, Judge, I sell everything 10 % above cost. What's wrong?
Can I give my customers a good deal?
The judge threw the case out immediately and came by her store the next day buying $1 ,400 worth of carpet.
The publicity she got from this trial was worth more than anything she could have paid for.
The 1950s and the Korean War brought new challenges as sales slowed and the bills added up, but Rose refused to fold.
She came up with a bold idea.
She said, I'm going to rent the downtown Omaha City Auditorium.
I'm going to take all the furniture out of my store and we're going to hold a three day sale.
The big store competitors actually went to the city and said she couldn't do this.
They asked the city not to rent to her.
The city ignored them and rented to her anyways.
She cleared $250 ,000 in revenue in three days, which allowed her to pay all of her bills, and finally stopped her from having to sell the furniture from her own house.
This, more than anything, is what Rose says put her in business.
Now, what's instructive here is Rose's response to obstacles.
She doesn't break. When conventional channels were closed for her, she didn't complain about the unfairness she found alternative paths.
When established players tried to use their power to crush her, she turned their attacks into opportunities for publicity.
Each attempt to constrain her became an opportunity.
This pattern repeats throughout business history.
Outliers don't waste energy fighting the existing system on its own terms. They simply build a better alternative.
That same year brought personal tragedy when her husband Isidore died of a heart attack after 36 years of marriage.
Rose would be a widow for the next 48 years, channeling all of her energy into her business.
While Nebraska furniture mart legend centers on Rose's indomitable spirit their daughter Frances reveals how Isidore quietly shaped the stores customer service philosophy.
My father was really a teacher, he said no matter what happens you smile we need the customer they don't need us they can go to our competition.
We have to do something to keep them here.
This immigrant couple who survived revolution, separation and poverty created a business approach based on lived experience.
They knew firsthand that every dollar mattered to their customers because every dollar had once mattered desperately to them.
Their son Louis joined after the war in 1945, providing a calming balance to Rose's quick temper.
He would often hire back employees she just had fired.
By the mid 1950s, Rose could have retired comfortably.
Instead, at an age when most conclude careers, she was just hitting her stride.
Work, as one sales associate put it, was her narcotic.
Rose had the eye of a detective.
Her attention to detail was extraordinary.
Every morning, she would inspect shipments personally, not just looking at carpet, but feeling the texture and the weight.
Once her trained fingers detected something off in a major shipment, "'this is not the weight I bought," she declared.
"'I bought so many ounces.
"'This is not the correct weight.'" She wasn't using his scale!
The manufacturer confirmed her assessment uncovering an astonishingly large criminal operation at the mill where workers were stealing yarn, diluting quality, and pocketing the difference.
An entire fraud operation was exposed not by auditors or quality control systems but by a woman who couldn't read English yet and she could feel the absence of a few ounces of wool across hundreds of square yards of carpet.
As Buffett would later observe, this wasn't business acumen you could learn at Harvard. What's instructive here is how Rose maintained hands -on product knowledge even as her business grew.
Many organizations separate senior leadership from direct product experience, but Rose understood the quality control wasn't a department, it was a personal responsibility that couldn't be delegated.
The Blumkin partnership also reveals the strength of having the right partner or co -pilot.
While Rose had a commercial intuition and fighting spirit, Isadora provided the steady foundation of customer psychology and support.
A poor partner silently sabotages everything while a strong one amplifies your impact.
In August of 1961 disaster struck when a three -alarm fire destroyed half of the Nebraska furniture market.
Now an ordinary business would have closed for weeks.
The damage was severe.
The roof was completely open to the elements, but Rose wouldn't hear of it.
We're opening tomorrow she declared.
She mobilized every family member who could walk.
Once they had organized what remained, she announced, we're going to have the biggest fire sale, we're going to tell the customers the truth.
All this furniture downtown was in the fire.
If you want to buy it, buy it.
People lined up by the hundreds.
Adversity meant nothing to Rose Blumpkin.
According to her daughter, my mother always says, I've been through a revolution.
I've been through a war, I survive that I'll survive this.
Then she said, we'll just start again.
That's all. A normal individual would sit down and cry and say, what am I going to do?
But not my mother. So grateful was Rose to the firefighters who saved what they could save, that she gave a television set to every fire station in the city, a gesture that was both genuinely appreciative and strategically generated a lot of goodwill.
Fourteen years later in May 1975 catastrophe returned again when a tornado cut a quarter -mile path through Omaha, leveling an entire Nebraska furniture market, building, and warehouse.
Yet again, Rose turned disaster into opportunity.
The other locations saw an increase in business as a result, and they rebuilt the Destroyed store on an even grander scale.
You know, what separates outliers from others isn't the absence of setbacks, it's how they respond to them.
Rose's approach to catastrophe demonstrates a mindset we see repeatedly, viewing disasters not as endings, but as forced opportunities for re -invention.
She understood intuitively the customers respond to transparency and authenticity, or even perhaps especially, during a crisis.
By immediately announcing a fire sale rather than hiding the damage, she transformed potential ruin into a marketing opportunity that deepened customer trust. Rose possessed an extraordinary talent for judging character.
Just as she understood customers' needs and how to draw them into a store, she naturally identified great talent for Nebraska Furniture Mark.
When she found a good worker, where she viewed their entire family as potential assets.
Miss Touchet, I know your family, she said.
When approached about his son needing summer work, if you tell me you've got a good boy, send him in.
One employee, Mr. Watson, became legendary because all eight of his children eventually worked at the Mart, creating a mini dynasty of retail talent under Rose's cultivation, Nembrask Furniture Mart's version of succession planning, family by family.
Her standards, however, were unreasonable and inflexible.
Character was the only currency that mattered.
If an employee ignored a customer, Rose would materialize out of nowhere with her verdict.
This is not for you.
No second chances. No performance improvement plans.
And Rose's world customer focus wasn't taught.
It was either innate or absent.
Rose subverted conventional hiring wisdom when a college graduate sought employment.
Her response was deadpan.
I won't hold it against you.
She looked past the credentials straight to the character, preferring Street Smarts over Book Learning, hustle over pedigree.
She would also study shoppers, their questions, demeanor, and sincerity, occasionally making an unexpected pivot.
You know something, I like the questions you ask me.
How would you like a job?
A woman might enter seeking a bedroom set within a tight budget and leave with a position in sales.
Rose had inverted the entire interview process, observing people in their natural state rather than the rehearsed interview persona.
Even with her children's friends who distribute a flyer she tracked performance meticulously.
Don't ever bring little Johnny to me again.
He took the fliers and threw them in the sewers she'd declare.
He can never work for me again.
The message was clear, character reveals itself in the smallest actions." What's worth pointing out here is how high her standards were.
From the outside looking in, it kinda looks crazy.
However, it works. We grow up with a set of standards and belief that become our norm and it takes outliers with their unreasonably high standards to show us what's possible.
A 1977 newspaper profile captured her single minded focus better than any words I can write.
Here's how it goes.
Favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon visit with my customers at my store.
Favorite thing to do on a nice evening, drive around to check the competition and plan my next attack.
Favorite movie or book in the last year.
Too busy, don't have time.
Favorite place. My stores.
By the late 1970s, Rose was in her 80s.
While her body slowed her mental acuity remained extraordinary.
Unable to walk the vast expanse of her main store, which now covered three square city blocks on two floors, she began driving a motorized cart through the aisles.
Her mathematical abilities bordered on supernatural.
She couldn't read or write English but she could perform complex calculations instantly in her head.
Her grandson Larry Batt recalled, at one point, where a price was about to be decided, a race would commence between her and a salesman with a calculator.
The salesman always lost. In 1990 on ABC's 20 20 a reporter tested this ability as Rose zoomed around her scooter.
Say the carpet's 12 .95 a yard and I want 30 yards.
How much is that? 390, Rose replied in less than second and if my room is 12 by 14 how many 19 yards she answered before he could finish.
She was 96 years old during that interview her mental sharpness was matched by physical resilience at 97 she drove her cart into a metal post and broke her ankle but didn't seek medical attention until the next day when she couldn't stand up it was just a crack it didn't hurt she explained she returned to work the following day fires tornadoes broken bones nothing could get miss B down.
She was relentless.
This extreme work ethic both inspired and intimidated those around her.
When Warren Buffett quipped at a Berkshire Hathaway meeting that he'd like to introduce Berkshire Hathaway's managers except Ms. B couldn't take the time off for foolishness like a shareholders meeting.
He was only half joking.
The lesson here is simple.
Focus is a superpower in an age of fractured attention and constant distraction.
Rose's singular focus on her business created a depth of experience that her competitors couldn't match. Scattered energy destroys impact.
Discipline focus multiplies it.
Most people drift between multiple priorities, never fully committing.
She wasn't just present in her business, she was immersed in it, creating an advantage that manifested in everything from pricing to quality control.
Warren Buffett had known of Nebraska Furniture Mark for many years.
A lifelong Omaha resident, he admired the Blumpkins business savvy from afar.
In the late 1960s, he actually offered $7 million for the store, an offer Rose dismissed immediately calling him cheap.
But on his 53rd birthday in 1983, Buffett returned with a new proposal.
$60 million for 90 % of the company.
This time, Rose accepted.
What follows was characteristically unconventional.
They shook hands on the deal.
No lawyers, no audit, no inventory count.
The later put their agreement in writing in a one -page document.
The document mainly states that we shook hands, Buffett explained.
If she ran a popcorn stand, I'd want to be in business with her.
What did Buffett see in Rose's operation that others missed?
Later Buffett would elaborate on what he saw in Miss B's business.
I'd rather wrestle Grizzlies than compete with Miss B.
They buy brilliantly, they operate at expense ratios competitors don't even dream about, and they pass that on to the customers.
It's the ideal business, one built upon exceptional value to the customer, that in turn translates into exceptional economics for its owners.
He would elaborate a little bit more on this later.
First of all, A. She's just plain smart B.
She's a fierce competitor C.
She's a tireless worker and D.
She has a realistic attitude The deal embodied Buffet's investment philosophy perfectly.
A simple business with honest management, sustainable competitive advantage and outstanding economics.
Nebraska Furniture Mart had all three in abundance.
For Rose then nearing 90, the sale was a way to avoid family conflict after her death.
She split the proceeds five ways between her four children and herself.
Her son Louie and his family subsequently bought back 10%, making Brickshore's final purchase price about $55 million.
In a press conference announcing the deal, Rose called Mr. Buffet, my hero alongside the middle class and the immigrants.
He's a genius. I respect him a lot.
He's very honest, very plain, and his word is as good as gold.
I think there's not another one in the city who is so gentle, so nice, so honest, and so friendly.
This partnership between two utterly different personalities, the university -educated investor from a comfortable middle class background, and the self -taught immigrant who couldn't read English, represents something profound about American business.
Despite their contrasting past they recognized in each other the same fundamental values, honesty, focus on customer value, and an ability to cut through the complexity to the essential truth of a business proposition.
Out here, there's no one way of doing things, no unwritten rules, and no shortage of adventure.
Because out here, the only requirement is having fun.
Bank of America invites kids six to 18 to golf with us.
For a limited time, sign them up for a free one -year membership, giving them access to discounted T - Continuing at thousands of courses.
Learn more at bankofamerica .com slash golf with us.
What would you like the power to do?
Bank of America. Restrictions apply.
cba .com slash golf with us for complete details, Copyright 2025, Bank of America Corporation." The new McCrispy's Trip is here.
Dip approved by ketchup, tangy barbecue, honey, mustard, honey mustard, Sprite, McFlurry, Big Mac sauce, double dipped in buffalo and ranch, more ranch, and creamy chili McCrispy's Trip dip.
Now at McDonald's. One thing that's interesting here is how both Rose and Buffett prioritize character over credentials.
Buffett would later elaborate on the three things that he looks for in a person.
He would say intelligence, energy and integrity.
And Miss B had all three in spades, their handshake deal wasn't reckless.
It was built on mutual recognition of integrity.
The business world often substitutes complex legal agreements for genuine trust but, as I tell my kids, there's no such thing as a good deal with someone you can't trust. You can't make a good deal with a bad person.
When character is the foundation, trust becomes possible.
In May 1989, a workplace dispute led to one of the most remarkable second acts in American business history.
Rose, then 96, had a disagreement with her grandson, who had taken over daily operations from their father.
Rose walked out of the store telling reporters she might be the first 96 year old woman to start a business.
After briefly considering retirement, she opened Miss B's warehouse in a converted grocery distribution center directly across the street from the Nebraska Furniture Mart.
When ABC's 20 -20 asked if she would ever retire, her answer was unequivocal.
No, I love to be with people and my customers are so wonderful people.
Asked if she would like to see Nebraska furniture Mart go out of business, her response was characteristically blunt.
I would, it should go up in smoke.
I like they should go down to hell.
The shocking statement captured Rose's black and white worldview.
There were no gray areas for her, only right and wrong.
Good and bad, friends and enemies.
As Buffett observed, everything Miss Bean knew how to do, she would do fast. She didn't hesitate.
There was no second -guessing.
She'd buy 5 ,000 tables, or sign a 30 -year lease, or buy real estate, or hire people.
There was no looking back.
She just swung. Fortunately, the family rift eventually healed in 1991.
On her 98th birthday, Buffett brought roses and chocolates to Rose at her new workplace, ending their two -year silence.
He's a real gentleman, she conceded.
By 1993, at age 99, she had reconciled with her grandsons and sold Miss B's warehouse back to Nebraska Furniture Mark for $4 .94 million.
This time, Buffett made sure she signed a noncompete agreement lasting five years beyond her separation from the company.
I thought she might go on forever", Buffett explained.
I needed five years beyond forever with her.
Rose admitted, maybe I was wrong, maybe I was too hard on them.
I'm very independent.
If things aren't run the way I want it, I don't like it.
I get mad. What's remarkable about this episode isn't just the audacity of starting a competing business at 96 and wanting to drive your kids and grandkids out of business, but how it reveals Rose's unwavering commitment to principle.
Most people soften their standards as they age, making compromises in the name of harmony.
Not Rose. She did not optimize her life around what other people thought of her.
Her outrage wasn't about carpet pricing, it was about violating a core belief that had guided her for decades.
Rose Blumpkin's story offers us something increasingly rare in business narratives, absolute clarity of purpose.
In our era of complex strategies, elaborate frameworks, and disruption -obsessed start -ups, Miss B's approach feels almost revolutionary in its simplicity.
Sell cheap. Tell the truth.
Don't cheat the customer.
Three principles she took deadly serious.
She began with just $500 in a basement, couldn't read English, survived a fire that destroyed half of her store, rebuilt after a tornado flattened it entirely and at 96 started a competing business just to prove a point.
Through it all, her principles never wavered.
Charlie Munger once observed, to get what you want, you have to deserve what you want.
the world is not yet crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.
Rose Blumpkin deserved her success because she created genuine value for her customers every single day of her 80 -year career.
She didn't just claim to put them first, she proved it with every transaction, every decision, and every interaction.
Researching this story I was struck by how she described her customers.
She never said they bought from her, instead she repeatedly said they loaned her money.
This subtle phrasing reveals her unique perspective.
Transactions weren't mere exchanges, but relationships built on trust and obligation.
Her customers were investing in her, and she felt obligated to give them a return on that investment.
Remember how Rose navigated obstacles.
When wholesalers wouldn't sell to her, she became the best bootlegger in town.
When competitors sued her, she turned the publicity into increased sales.
When catastrophe struck, she reopened immediately, rather than waiting.
When she lacked formal education, she relied on her mathematical brilliance.
When she could no longer walk her store, she zoomed through it on a motorized cart.
With each challenge she demonstrated the advantages of bouncing and not braking.
Today, Nebraska furniture mart spanned 77 acres in Omaha with a million square feet of retail and warehouse space.
The company has expanded Iowa, Kansas and Texas.
Miss B's likeness appears throughout the stores and her grandson, Even Robert Batte says simply, my grandmother is still the frontman of Nebraska Furniture March. She's the symbol of the company.
Rose Blumkin's lifespan from Tsarist Russia to the digital age.
She witnessed two world wars, survived the Great Depression and saw the complete transformation of the retail industry.
Through it all, she remained steadfast in her core beliefs.
If you want to work hard and tell the truth and sell cheap, she said, near the end of her life, you can make a success.
Anybody who lies and cheats around people don't get anywhere.
In our complex age, there's something profoundly refreshing about such clarity.
That's the greatest lesson from this immigrant who built an empire.
Success doesn't just have to be complicated, just has to be earned.
And when Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, was asked about Rose after her death, he said simply, we were partners.
And in most ways, she was the senior partner.
She's forgotten more than all of her know.
Okay, let's talk about a few afterthoughts before we get into the lessons here.
One, what a force. Rose was unstoppable.
In fact, she reminds me a lot of Estee Lauder.
Remember the story when she went to Chicago's Merchandise Mart and they refused to sell to her because her competitors were telling the wholesalers not to sell to her.
And she's like, one day you'll come in my store and I will refuse to sell to you.
And it's that sort of chip that just stays with you.
And it reminded me of the Estee Lauder story.
Remember at the beginning in 218 where she asked the woman where she got the blouse and the woman responded with, it doesn't matter.
You'll never be able to afford it.
And in both cases, these remarkable women turn that slight into fuel.
The fuel that puts a chip on your shoulder, the fuel that never burns out.
For anybody who's ever been discounted, anybody who's ever felt a chip on their shoulder, anybody who's ever been overlooked or slighted, they remember these things and that fuel never goes out.
And the fuel, people say you shouldn't be driven by this, but it really drives a lot of outliers.
You think of Tom Brady.
Tom Brady's one of my favorite examples of this.
And he has so many of these sort of like little moments, these little slights.
So Tom Brady, Michigan, it's his senior year, it's autograph day there's this kid, Drew Hudson I think his name was, that they brought on to play after Tom Brady.
And Drew was like this all -American, five -star recruit, everybody wanted Drew to be successful.
And Tom Brady is just like overlooked, he's just a placeholder until Drew can start.
But on autograph day Tom Brady's standing in in this tunnel and he's watching the line -up of people and they're all lined up for Drew.
They all want Drew's signature.
Drew hasn't done anything at this point.
And Brady's just standing there, watching all these people and he's seething, it's like burning inside of him.
And his friend's like, come on, let's go.
And Brady says, no, I wanna watch this.
And he just stands there and watches and it gets etched into his mind.
And then he gets drafted.
what was it, 96 overall, and every one of these slides, you bet your bottom dollar he remembers, and it fueled him.
And when he didn't want to work out, he thought about it.
When he didn't want to get out of bed and practice, he thought about it.
And when he had a bad game, he thought about it, and it fueled him and pushed him further.
Michael Jordan was the exact same way.
He would even antagonize his opponents into saying something or manufacture things that they did say if wouldn't say anything just to give him an extra edge.
I think it's worth thinking about that stuff and you have to think about the episode I did with Brent Beshore whether this is dirty fuel or clean fuel for you and your situation, but it's definitely something that I think about a lot.
Okay let's get into some of the lessons we can take away from Rose Bumpkin.
Number one, a taste for salt water.
What separates exceptional people is their capacity to endure discomfort.
Rose walked barefoot for 18 miles at the age of 13 to save her only pair of shoes.
Later she opened a furniture store during a depression, she rebuilt after a fire gutted half of her building, she came to work the day after breaking her ankle at 97.
Most people avoid pain, outliers work through it.
Number two, high agency.
Most people see circumstances as fixed.
High agency people see them as variables.
When depression -era customers couldn't afford shotguns, Rose didn't complain about the economy, she created a rental program overnight.
The line stretched around the block the next morning.
High agency isn't magical thinking, it's the refusal to accept artificial constraints.
Three, bias towards action.
While average performers wait for perfect conditions, exceptional ones create momentum through immediate action.
After a devastating fire, Rose didn't wait for the dust to settle.
Instead she said, we're opening tomorrow and turned that disaster into a successful sale.
When business slowed during the Korean war, she rented the city auditorium and cleared $250 ,000 in a three -day sale.
Action creates options that passivity never discovers.
When wholesalers refuse to sell to Rose calling her bootlegger, she embraced it.
You betcha, and I'm the best bootlegger in town and she found backdoor suppliers.
When competitors sued her she turned the courtroom into free advertising.
Resilience isn't about avoiding knockdowns it's about how you use them as launching pads.
Five dark hours. Excellence happens when nobody's watching.
Rose cleaned stores before dawn as a teenager she inspected every carpet shipment personally into her 90s Remember she detected yarn theft at a mill supplier just by feeling the carpet and it was slightly underweight.
The public sees the outcome, but never the work.
Six, your reputation is the room.
Rose understood that your reputation creates opportunities before you even enter the conversation.
Military officers stationed across the world would buy furniture unseen because Miss B doesn't lie.
A judge who ruled in her favor bought carpet the next day.
Your reputation isn't what you claim, rather it's the collective experience of others have of you and it determines which rooms you walk into.
Seven choose the right copilot.
Partnerships are force multipliers.
Izzetor balanced Rose intensity with steady customer service principles.
Warren Buffett bought her business on a handshake with no audit because character recognition works both ways.
The right partners don't just add to your strengths, they compensate for your weaknesses while amplifying your impact.
Eight, it takes what it takes.
Every exceptional achievement has a non -negotiable price.
Rose worked 12 hour days from 13 until 103, calling her work her narcotic.
At a luncheon honoring her, she stood up at 115 and announced, what's wrong with you people?
Don't you have jobs?
I'm going back to work.
Ordinary results come from ordinary effort.
Extraordinary results demand unreasonable commitment.
Number nine, focus is a superpower.
In today's fractured attention economy, Rose's single -minded concentration would be her greatest advantage.
She had one tab open, her business, while her competitors scattered their attention across multiple priorities.
This wasn't mere workaholism.
It was the elimination of distractions, creating depth of knowledge that no competitor could match. Simple scales.
Fancy fails. Rose's entire business philosophy fit on an index card. Sell cheap, tell the truth, don't cheat the While competitors built complex systems and layers of management, her straightforward approach eliminated friction.
Complex businesses move slowly, simple ones can scale with less overhead and fewer bottlenecks.
I hope you really enjoyed learning about Rose Blumpkin.
She's a tremendous force, a great story and I hope she inspires you as much as she inspired me.
Thanks for listening and learning with us and be sure to sign up for my FREE weekly newsletter at fs .blog slash newsletter.
I hope you enjoyed my reflections at the end of this episode that's normally reserved for members, but with this Outliers series I wanted to make them available to everyone.
The Farnam Street website is where you can get more info on our membership program which includes access to episode transcripts, reflections for all episodes, my updated repository, featuring highlights from the books used in this series, and more.
Plus, be sure to follow myself and Farnam Street on x, instagram, and linkedin.
If you like what we're doing here, leaving a rating and review would mean the world.
And if you really like us, sharing with a friend is the best way to grow this special series.
Until next time!
