I occasionally get a fun & wonderful story or motivation piece from a gentleman by the name of Mike Litman.  I’ve included one he sent me in today’s T4D about McDonalds…and a guy by the name of Ray Kroc.  I think the story is as Golden as the Arches were to me as a kid….ENJOY  !!

Dear Kirk,

There’s so much you and I can learn from reading biographies and I’m about to share with you a success insight in a moment that you’re going to enjoy.

I love reading, especially biographies, I devour them.

In the last 2 weeks, I’ve re-read 2 great books about Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds. Ray Kroc was an incredible entrepreneur and his entrepreneurial story is one we all can learn from.

At 51 years of age, Kroc wasn’t making much money, but he wasn’t letting go of his dreams. Kroc had ambitions, dreams, and while others were thinking of retirement, Kroc was thinking of making it big.

It would take us to long to go into Kroc’s failures, challenges, but a quote I read from him says VOLUMES about becoming successful as an entrepreneur.

“When I met the McDonalds brothers, I was ready for the opportunity. By then, I had enough experience in the food and beverage business that I could tell a real idea from a counterfeit.”

I want you to look at the line - ‘I was ready for the opportunity”. So much in life is about being ‘ready for an opportunity”.

For 25 years Kroc had some success, many failures in the food service business, but he loved it and kept persevering.

Kroc was well known for going the extra mile for his clients and trying to help them add revenue to their business by using his milkshake maker and other products.

So in 1954, when Ray Kroc saw what the McDonald brothers were doing, his eyes lit up. The tough times, the failures, the years of struggle all started to pay off in that moment.

Remember Ray Kroc didn’t ‘invent’ McDonalds, but when he saw what they were doing he instantly saw a VISION in his mind of what the potential was.

Ray Kroc saw thousands of McDonalds around the world.

What’s so important to realize is that Ray Kroc could not have built McDonalds without the prior years of struggle.

The years of paying the price. We always go through periods of insignificance before we become ’significant’.

Too few are willing to pay that price.

Listen.

You must find something you love to do and start. Work for fr.ee.

Ray Kroc knew that whatever age he was, he wasn’t giving up on his dreams.

He knew that if he was ‘ready for an opportunity’ that there was a good chance it would show up.

There are opportunities everywhere, but if we can’t SEE THEM, if our mindset isn’t ready for them, then the opportunities are invisible.

Like Ray Kroc, put yourself in a position to win.

It’s not always going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it.

Mike Litman

Make it a great day, it’s your choice!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 1:12 am and is filed under T4D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.