What I learned from rereading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc.
I have always believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems.
It is a simple philosophy.
I find that it functions as well for me now that I am a multi millionaire as it did when I was selling paper cups for $35 a week and playing the piano part time to support my wife and baby daughter.
It follows that a man must take advantage of any opportunity that comes along, and I have always done that too.
After 17 years of selling paper cups, I saw opportunity appear in the form of a milkshake machine called the multimixer, and I grabbed it.
It wasn't easy to give up security and a well paying job to strike out on my own.
My wife was shocked and incredulous.
Yet I was alert to other opportunities too.
When I heard about an incredible thing that was happening with my multimixer out in California.
I kept getting these calls and the message was always the same.
I want one of those mixers of yours like the McDonald brothers have out in California.
I got curious.
Who were the McDonald brothers and why were customers picking up on the multimixer from them when I had similar machines in lots of other places?
So I did some checking and was astonished to learn that the McDonald's had not one multimixer, not two or three, but eight.
The mental picture of eight multimixers churning out 40 shakes at one time was just too much to be believed.
So I flew out to California to check for myself.
Something was definitely happening here.
The cars began to arrive and lines started to form.
Soon the parking lot was full and people were marching up to the window and back to their cars with bags full of hamburgers.
Eight multimixers turning away at one time began to seem a lot less far fetched in light of this steady procession of customers.