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GROWING RICH WITH GROWTH STOCKS<br />
time, and they’d usually listen to what we had to say. In 1960-1962,<br />
a lot of women were still working at home. Many times we’d get to<br />
talk to the woman during the day, and if she was interested, you’d<br />
<strong>com</strong>e back in the evening. But there were times when we’d knock on<br />
the door and all of a sudden the lights inside would mysteriously go<br />
off. Other times we’d return to find the woman’s husband had no interest<br />
and wouldn’t let us through the front door. It was really like<br />
looking for needles in a haystack. The overall percentage of people<br />
we got to spend time with wasn’t high, so we had to knock on a lot<br />
of doors. I would guess that over a two-year period, my <strong>com</strong>panions<br />
and I helped bring about 50 people into the church.” The mission<br />
experience changed the nature and direction of Yacktman’s life.<br />
As a boy, Yacktman had spent summers watching his father’s entrepreneurial<br />
exploits. Although this experience lit the business bug<br />
that lurked deep inside, Yacktman’s real academic strengths were always<br />
in science and math. Not surprisingly, therefore, he originally<br />
planned on be<strong>com</strong>ing an electrical or chemical engineer. “The late<br />
1950s were the Sputnik period, when anybody who was good at science<br />
or math sort of got pushed into engineering,” he remembers. “I<br />
didn’t like life science that much, but I studied it anyway. I was always<br />
intimidated by going to the chemistry lab and having to find out what<br />
elements were in the samples we were required to analyze. I got A’s,<br />
mind you, but it intimidated me.”<br />
After returning home from his mission, Yacktman knew he wanted<br />
to do something else, something that involved working around other<br />
people. “I felt if I went into engineering, I would be more oriented<br />
toward working with things rather than people, and I really loved the<br />
idea of working with people,” he explains. “Before I began college, I<br />
had taken this exam, which shows the professions that are best suited<br />
for your own personal interests and aptitudes. When I returned from<br />
my mission, I looked at it again. To my surprise, I was in the 30 or<br />
so percentile for engineering, but in the 90-plus percentile for business.<br />
I knew right then I wanted to get an MBA and switched my major to<br />
economics. It was as if a light bulb went off in my head once I started<br />
taking those business courses. They were really fun and enjoyable.”<br />
LOVE CONNECTION<br />
Yacktman remained active with the Latter-Day Saints throughout<br />
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