How to Think Like a Millionaire

 

The rich have always fascinated people less well off than themselves.  They stand like a race apart; the rest of us expect them to be more educated, have a better start in life, have extraordinary good luck, too.  In short, most of us believe that being rich is something that’s decided before birth. 

 

And many of us believe, though we might make a good living, we just don’t have what it takes to achieve real wealth.  But the fact is the majority of self-made millionaires, including many famous names, were born to poor, sometimes pathetically impoverished parents.  And certainly they could not be accused of having more than their fair share of luck, since a great number of them encountered terrific hardships and numerous hurdles along the way from poverty to wealth.  People like Paul Getty, for instance, whose father was born into abject poverty.  And Japanese motor magnate Soichiro Honda, whose father ran a small workshop where he repaired farming machinery and bicycles.  Not exactly the privileged childhood we might have expected.

 

In Millionaire Mentality, we will discuss what really matters for wealth creation.  Not the childhood, not our parents, not cash, not luck!  Just ambition, enthusiasm, resilience, confidence, persistence and optimism. 

 

So what distinguishes a millionaire, or billionaire?  One thing to bear in mind at the outset, is the fact that opportunity doesn’t pay more frequent calls on the rich.  They don’t, in fact, wait for her to come knocking at all.  They make their own opportunities.  The rich will look for opportunities and challenges while the majority of people continue with their everyday existence, waiting for a good job to turn up, anticipating a lottery win, waiting for an elderly relative to die and bequeath them everything they own.  The really successful man or woman waits for none of these things.  Instead, they see opportunity where the rest of us see nothing. 

 

Yet opportunities are all around us, and it doesn’t take a genius to spot them. 

 

All we have to do is keep our minds positive and constantly seeking new opportunities.  This is what Millionaire Mentality is all about.

 

We might now turn to one of the most prolific orators for inspiration. 

 

‘If you can calculate how much you have, then you are not a billionaire!’

John Paul Getty

 

‘There’s a lot of room at the top.  This symbolic Millionaire’s Club has an unlimited number of vacant seats to fill on its membership roster.  I’m afraid that if these seats are not filled more quickly, it is because young potential candidates, who are very qualified, give up the fight before it really begins’.

John Paul Getty

 

‘To become a billionaire, you have to have the mentality of a billionaire.  This particular state of mind concentrates all knowledge and intelligence on a single and unique goal’.

John Paul Getty

 

‘Luck, knowledge and arduous work - especially arduous work - are all necessary for a man to become a millionaire.  But, above all that, he needs what can be called the ‘millionaire mentality’: that essential state of mind and conscience which mobilises the intelligence and all the talents of an individual to accomplish his tasks and realise the goals he has set for himself in business’.

John Paul Getty

 

So why aren’t we all rich and famous?

 

Ironically, the majority of people fear success.  In fact, most people will actively look for reasons to avoid pursuing a course to great wealth.  Fear of the unknown, low image of themselves, fear of failure, all contribute here. 

 

So, what are the most common excuses we give for not being up there with the rich and famous?  And what other factors prevent us from setting and, more importantly, achieving our goals?  Amongst them are:

 

The Excuses

 

*  I’ve been in this job for years.  It’s secure.  It’s well paid.  I couldn’t possibly give it up to follow a dream.

 

Here you are admitting to a fear of failure, a dread of the unknown. 

 

*  It’s (the job) all I’m qualified to do

 

Fear again!  Earning your living has been easy this far.  Boring too! 

 

*  I haven’t the intelligence or expertise to go it on my own

 

Daily declarations will help reprogramme the subconscious to reject negatives vibes and replace them with their positive counterparts.  Joe Karbo, author of The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches talks of daily declarations in terms of verbal communications between the individual and his subconscious.  If the individual’s worst fear is failure itself, then the daily declaration (practised first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and as many times during the day as you can) might find the individual repeating aloud to himself:

 

‘I am the most successful businessman I know.  Nothing comes between me and my objectives.  I achieve everything I set out to achieve’.

 

‘I am a well-organised individual.  I know where I am going and I know I will arrive there’.

 

Ray Kroc, someone we will turn to for advice time and time again in this manual, was also afraid of the future, apprehensive of the unknown.  For him, the answer was to imagine his fears as words on a blackboard which an imaginary hand would then erase.  This became the focus of long periods of meditation during which Kroc would spend hours writing his worst fears on the blackboard for the imaginary hand to erase.  Immediately the fears resurfaced, they would be written down and obliterated within seconds.  It worked for Kroc.  It could work for you too.  Give it a try.

 

*  I’m too old.  I’m too young.

 

‘If only I’d done it years ago, when I was young’. The cry of many a person in middle or later life who suddenly finds a talent he or she didn’t know existed.  And now, it’s too late.  Or is it? 

 

Exactly why we consider youth so important when it comes to being successful, particularly in business, is something we might never really know.  And almost certainly this popular belief is pure fallacy.  In fact, many of the world’s most successful men and women hadn’t even begun to make real money until well into their middle years, sometimes later. 

 

Thankfully, Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Chicken fame had no reservations about age being a deterrent to business success.  According to the Colonel ‘At seventy-four, I sold, for the sum of two million dollars, my fried chicken business, which I’d started at the age of sixty-five, when I was getting ready to live out my days on social security’. 

 

Ray Kroc was another great believer in age having no power over ambition and goal-setting.  ‘People are always amazed by the fact that I didn’t start McDonald’s before I was 52 years old!’

Ray Kroc, founder of the McDonald’s food chain.

 

Henry Ford, on the other hand, believed age to be a distinct advantage to starting and running a business, and to the smooth functioning of life in general.  ‘Take away all the men over fifty’, he said, ‘and the world would stop turning’. 

 

So what of the claim that experience comes with age?  Well, according to many researchers on the subject, experience does not actually depend on time spent learning.  Some of us will never exceed a certain level of expertise no matter how long we practice our skills. 

 

But can you ever be too young to succeed; too young to be taken seriously?

 

Not according to Paul Getty.  ‘All of a sudden I realised that I’d covered a lot of ground towards achieving the goal I had set myself, and which I had undertaken in September of 1914. 

 

I had established the base for my own business in the American petroleum industry.  I wasn’t quite 24 years old, but I had become a successful independent petroleum dealer.  And I’d made my first million’.

 

*  Times are bad.  No-one can make any money these days!

 

Here, we have given up the fight before it even begins.  Real entrepreneurs don’t think this way.  In fact, sometimes the bad times are really the best, certainly as far as business is concerned.

 

‘It seems like the only thing we can count on in the United States is that even during the hardest of recessions, the rich get richer’.  Lee Iacocca, Chief Executive Officer, Chrysler Corporation.

 

‘There is no such thing as bad times, I kept telling myself.  Business is there if you go after it’.  Estee Lauder.

 

‘It’s when things are going badly that you should build.  Why wait for things to pick up, and for everything to cost more?’  Ray Kroc

 

The Psychic Sins

 

Psychic sins are the most common reasons for failure to achieve anything in life, be it money, love, satisfactory personal relationships, self-fulfilment or power.  Fear is largely the result of the conditioning process. 

 

Sadly, it is our parents who are mainly to blame for our low achievement and lack of ambition.  In trying to protect them from disappointment in life, they encourage their children to stop chasing impossible dreams; stop yearning for more than life’s basic essentials.  The basic theory behind this damning process is that of not aiming for more than our own parents have achieved.  They’re reasonably happy with their lot in life, they can show you how to be happy with yours. 

 

The many common psychic sins include:

 

*  Allowing other people to run and influence our lives

 

*  Blaming luck or fate for our failures

 

*  Under-estimating our own worth or potential

 

*  Giving in to fear instead of exploiting it to our benefit

 

*  Failing to understand the importance of goals

 

*  Failure to set clear goals

 

*  Thinking we are beaten before we even begin

 

American studies of the rich and famous, on the other hand, agree unanimously on three main characteristics of people destined for major success in business and in life.  These are:

 

*  Never doubting that one day they would be rich.

 

*  Realising that only positive action can help them achieve that goal.

 

*  An unconditional desire to succeed.

 

Failure and Fear - Your Most Powerful Foes

 

Millionaire mentality means living life to the full, grabbing every opportunity that comes your way, and living every day as if it was your last.  It involves taking risk and understanding, despite your best efforts, you might fail to reach your desired end result. But if you don’t try, you don’t win, and not trying is definitely worse than trying and failing a few times before reaching and exceeding your objectives.

 

Over to Paul Getty, again, for millionaire thinking on the subject of fear:  ‘The best remedy for fear is action.  Nothing is gained by sitting around worrying of what might, or might not be’.  The best course of action is to continue with your plan, Getty emphasised, you know it will work, you will make sure it does.  

 

Amongst other things the successful entrepreneur must do is learn to stay the course when the going gets tough.  The successful entrepreneur will view life’s challenges as something from which to learn and profit from. 

 

Words from the Rich and Famous

 

‘Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater Benefit’.

Napoleon Hill

 

 ‘It is possible that all the mistakes lead to an inestimable gain’.

Goethe

 

‘We have the perfect right to make mistakes, as long as we are doing what we like.  On the other hand, it is unpardonable to have done what we do not like, especially if we are a success’.

Christian Dior

 

‘Move forward and do what you think is best.  If you make a mistake, you’ll learn something.  But don’t make the same mistake twice’.

Akio Morita, Sony

 

‘Everybody makes mistakes.  Ibuka and I made quite a few.  We lost money on the Chromaton process, and we failed with the L-cassette.  We also had to unite a number of companies to keep the Beta-max format alive.  But the important thing is that these errors are human and natural; in the long run, they did not compromise the future of the company’.

Akio Morita

 

‘No one succeeds in all they try to do, and our existence always includes some measure of failure.  The important thing is not to weaken at the moment of truth, and maintain our efforts right up to the end of our lives’.

Joseph Conrad, Originator of the Conrad hotels chain

 

‘I think that each of the failures I had to face provided me with the opportunity of starting again and trying something new’.

Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken

 

‘Failures are like skinned knees ..... painful but superficial, they heal quickly’.

H Ross Perot, industrialist

 

‘Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.  What you need, generally, is enough time and a little luck’.

Donald Trump, industrialist

 

‘A man without fear succeeds in everything he undertakes’.

Napoleon Hill, American author

 

‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’.

Franklin Roosevelt

 

Wealth is All Around You

 

All you need is the confidence to reach out for your share.  Believe it or not, you have millionaire mentality too.  All you have to do is eliminate the negative, accentuate the positive, and you are almost there.  Setting goals, working out timetables, making best use of your time, and remembering to make your daily ‘declarations’ will help you develop your powers to the full.

 

Declarations are a means of reprogramming the subconscious to expect success.  There’s no room for failure.  Your mind won’t accept it.  Writers on the subject of motivation, including the great Joe Karbo, author of The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches, stress the importance of establishing a daily ritual of talking to oneself, specifying the things you want from life and the kind of person you want to be.  But, those declarations are made in the present tense for a speedier and more effective reprogramming. 

 

Reprogramming is a form of auto-suggestion.  By telling ourselves that we already have the things we want from life - tangible and intangible - we will work harder towards achieving them, even if just to prove ourselves right. 

 

Auto-suggestion of this kind lies behind the extraordinary curative powers of placebo drugs.  A French pharmacist by the name of Coue is credited with developing the placebo, sometimes called ‘sugar pills’, and defined as ‘medicines which perform no physiological function but may benefit the patient psychologically’.  Coue found himself unable to locate supplies of a medicine he had prescribed for many years, and no suitable replacement was available.  So he used sugar pills instead and found many patients reacted favourably, some more so than from their earlier medication.  Coue believed this proved man’s ability to cure himself by auto-suggestion.  From his early successes, Coue developed the technique of auto- or self-suggestion by having his patients repeat aloud, at least twenty times a day, that classic phrase:

 

‘Every day in every way I am getting better and better’.

 

Joe Karbo, living proof of the power of auto-suggestion, used a similar line, repeating to himself many times each day ‘I am rich in ability, I am rich in ambition, I am rich in opportunity, I am rich in family love’.  Karbo tells us, that his chosen method of reprogramming his subconscious transformed him from near bankrupt to multi-millionaire in very short time. 

 

Success is Deciding What You Want from Life, Then Working Towards Achieving It

 

First we must find an adequate definition of success before we can hope to highlight ways to achieve the things we want from life.  So, what does success mean to you? 

 

Along with the things you want from life you must acknowledge the sacrifices you might make along the way.  Does getting a better job mean having less time to spend with your children, for example?  The extra money and other benefits of advancement might seem worthwhile now, but will you regret not seeing your children grow up?  Is your partner in agreement with your goals?  Might working towards your goals ruin your relationship with your partner? 

 

The key to successful goal setting is to achieve a balance between what you want and the sacrifices you’ll have to make. 

 

Success might be further divided into achieving tangible and intangible objectives.  A new Porsche, a massive house in the country are examples of tangible objectives; peace of mind, love and good health are intangible ambitions. 

 

The Importance of Goals

 

Without goals, it’s unlikely that you’ll achieve anything in life - anything good that is.  Goals help you decide what you want from life and the means of achieving your aims.  They’ll also keep you on track towards achieving your objectives by highlighting any deviations from your best route. 

 

Let us now take a closer look at goals and their relevance to achieving success and wealth.  Most successful businesses, as many millionaires willing to divulge their secrets will tell you, are entirely dependent on the establishment of realistic and achievable objectives.  If you don’t know where your business is heading, there is every chance you will get lost along the way.  Goals channel your every effort into achieving success.

 

As a business man or woman, your most important task is to set aside sufficient time to setting your goals and deciding the best means of achieving them.  Once established, goals should be kept in mind at all times.  Perhaps it goes without saying that goals should always be held in the highest esteem and never be allowed to fade at the expense of something which might at the time seem more important. 

 

Goals can, though, be amended in the light of changing circumstances, but they should always be increased in value, except in exceptional cases.  Bear in mind that, to downgrade goals is generally a sign that one lacks the courage of one’s convictions.  For this reason it is vitally important to only set goals that are both realistic and attainable. 

 

Generally speaking, people who achieve success: 

 

*  Know exactly what their goals and objectives are.  Perhaps this may seem to be a statement of the obvious, but it’s not, for not only must you know that you want a better car, luxury house and improved salary, you must also know the exact model of car, locality of house, and the specific salary or profit level you want.

 

Really successful people keep their goals constantly to the fore.  For many, this means pasting pictures of the tangible things they want from life in as many places as they are likely to visit during the day: on bedroom walls, on top of the television, on the office notice board, inside the fridge, and more.

 

* Identify and obtain the equipment needed to achieve their goals.  Consider what other things are necessary for you to achieve your objectives.  These things can be physical or intangible items; they might consist of stationery, office furniture, a word processor or computer. 

 

Alternatively, you might need extra time, or more experience before you can operate your business efficiently. 

 

* Design a timetable setting targets and completion times.  Know exactly what you need to do today, tomorrow, next week, next year.  Stick to your timetable and make whatever amendments are necessary, but always on an upward trend, as long as your goals remain realistic and achievable. 

 

* To comply with these latter points, don’t, for instance, commit yourself to 20 extra hours of work a week, if you already have a full time job you want to keep, which leaves you with only a few hours to spare each week for pursuing your business.  Also ensure your timetable fits in with the needs of those around you, your family and work colleagues, for instance. 

 

What Kind of Goals?

 

The goals you set for yourself might include:

 

-  A better relationship with your partner and children

-  More time to spend on your hobbies

-  The chance to take more holidays

-  Earn more money

-  Get a job you really like

-  Get out of the rut you feel yourself to be in

-  Lose weight

-  Be more assertive

-  Get a new car

-  Buy a new house in an exclusive neighbourhood

-  Learn to dance

-  Achieve a more balanced life

-  Get into politics

-  Earn money in your spare time

-  Write a book

 

Millionaire Thoughts on Goals

 

‘You direct a garage or a business like you drive a bus.  It does its round, stopping to pick people up, but it can’t make a long distance trip.  Of course you can be happy driving the same route all your life.  But I wanted to drive bigger and faster buses, and see other places’.

Soichiro Honda, Founder of the Honda Motor Company

 

‘The moment had come to start working on realising another dream.  Trying to win Formula 1 was for many trying to accomplish the impossible. But my decision was made, once and for all.  I would have to put in the necessary time, but nothing could stop me from succeeding’.

Soichiro Honda

 

‘If you can dream it, you can do it’.

Walt Disney

 

‘First comes the shy wish.  Then you must have the heart to have the dream.  Then, you work.  And work’.

Estee Lauder

 

‘Your subconscious starts to function according to the universal law:  Whatever the mind can conceive of and believe in, it can obtain’.

Napoleon Hill

 

‘Condition yourself to determine clearly in your mind the goal that you want to achieve, and then, without letting yourself get sidetracked, head straight for your ideal’.  Dale Carnegie

 

Managing Your Time

 

Effective time management is essential to achieving your goals.  An hour saved is an hour you can use to plan for the future.  Effective time management means always knowing that your time is being properly utilised. 

 

If there’s something more profitable you could be doing right now, that’s what you should be doing.  Delegation, planning, making schedules, are all essential features of effective time management. 

 

At any point in time, stop to ask yourself the following questions:

 

*  Am I spending time on a priority task?  Alternatively, am I doing something which could have been delegated elsewhere while I concentrate on something more profitable?

 

*  Am I doing something purely because I couldn’t say ‘NO’?

 

*  Do I have too many commitments?  Are some more important than others?  Are there any I might give up in favour of concentrating on more important commitments?

 

Ways to make better use of your time include:

 

*  Try to sleep less.  Medical experts say we don’t need as much sleep as most of us think.  Most of us could easily get by on just a few hours’ sleep each night. 

 

*  Every morning, take time to write down your priorities for the day.  Work on the most important first, then the second priority task, and so on to the end of your work period.  Remaining tasks can be rescheduled for the following day. 

 

*  Make time for the things you want to do: spend more time with your children, read a good book, play a round of golf.

 

*  Do something every day to bring you nearer to achieving your goals. 

 

*  Don’t worry about being behind with your work, as long as the important parts are dealt with.

 

*  Don’t waste time regretting failures.

 

*  Learn how to say ‘no’.  Remember, this is your life, and your time.  Don’t waste it! 

 

Taking Care of Yourself

 

A healthy body and mind are two things everyone should aim for, whether we seek great wealth or not. 

 

It is to Aristotle Onassis we turn now for the secrets of his own magnificent wealth.  The main things to aim for, he confessed, were the very same secrets by which anyone, whatever business he or she were involved in, could virtually guarantee unlimited success.  According to Onassis, you should:

 

*  Take care of your body.  Exercise and stay trim.  For the majority of people, a tan in winter means not only that you know exactly where to find the sun, but that you also have ample means and money to get you there.  Here, Onassis propounds his theory that ‘Sun is Money’.  By implication then, if you can prove to customers and contacts that you have made enough money to take lengthy holidays abroad in search of the sun, you must be successful and your business is one they can trust. 

 

*  Once you have taken care of your physical appearance, establish a successful way of life.  Again the reasoning behind this suggestion is to convey the outward signs of success, and therefore add credibility to whatever business you operate in.  Onassis therefore suggests that you live in an elegant building - ‘Even if you take a room in the attic where you will rub shoulders with wealthy, successful people in the corridors and on the elevators’. 

 

Creating an outward impression of outstanding success, can also be achieved by being seen in luxury cafes, even if, as Onassis suggests, you have to sip your drinks more slowly because  you’re on a tight budget.

 

*  If you are short of money, borrow it.  BUT don’t borrow paltry amounts; borrow large sums and always repay promptly.

 

*  Keep your troubles to yourself - and consequently let people maintain that image of you as successful, wealthy, carefree, and someone they really should set out to establish a business relationship with.  Soon!

 

Taking care of yourself means being happy, taking time to do the things you want to do, and making sure that by concentrating on one goal you don’t miss out on something more important.

 

Personality Profiles

 

One of the best ways to develop your own millionaire mentality is to study already wealthy people.  Choose a role model, someone you admire, perhaps someone in the same business or profession as yourself.  Study everything they do and ask yourself why.  Learn what you can from them and then set out to better your chosen role models. 

 

Millionaire thoughts on studying the opposition:

 

‘To get results, stimulate competition, not the sordid competition based on gain alone but rather a more noble emulation; the desire to do better, to surpass others and to surpass oneself’.

Charles Schwab, First President of The United States Steel Company

 

PAUL GETTY

 

Paul Getty was born into a poor Irish family, whose father was forced to work at a very early age to support his widowed mother.  When he was twelve years old, a rich uncle paid for his schooling in Ohio and George Getty became a teacher.  His wife, Sarah, harboured serious ambitions for her husband and children, and it was she who urged George to give up his teaching post to train as a lawyer.  This was to be his first step up the ladder to success and by the time Paul Getty was 11 years old, his family was one of the richest in America.  George Getty had been summoned to Oklahoma to help with a client’s legal problems.  It was here his interest in oil began, and where he purchased his first 1,000 acre lot of land.  ‘Plot 50’ in fact comprised some 43 oil wells, all of which were drilled, and a staggering 42 yielded the black gold from which the family’s fortune would be generated.

 

Paul Getty inherited his mother’s ambitious streak, and was working a 12-hour day on his father’s oil fields during his university vacations. 

 

The young man’s most likely careers, based on his intellect and personality, might perhaps be in writing or politics.  Getty turned to oil, and on a modest budget from his father, he began prospecting for oil, sharing profits with his father: 70% to father, 30% to son.  His early days as a prospector yielded nothing.  During these first few months Getty’s ambition and resilience were tested to the full.  Lesser men would have given up, perhaps turned to a more ‘appropriate’ profession.  It was, in fact, this very same failure that spurred Getty on.  ÒA hatred of failure’, he confessed, ‘has always been part of my nature and, I suppose, one of the more pronounced motivating forces in my life’.

 

Ironically, although he was to wait some time before striking lucky, his first transaction in the oil business was that from which his massive fortune would grow.  Early in 1916, ‘The Nancy Taylor Allotment’ began producing 30 barrels of oil an hour, 700 a day.  His luck held out, and following a number of successful transactions in 1916, Getty was a millionaire before the year ended.  He was still only 23 years old!

 

Getty believed strongly in the power of knowledge for achieving an edge over his competitors.  When all around him condemned the usefulness of studies of geology and science to the oil business, Getty turned to books and reports, and surrounded himself with professional advice.  Less than a year into his career in oil, Getty retired, at the age of 24, to live a life of luxury in California.  Two years later he was back, unable to find any sense or purpose in his life.  The experience did, however, teach him one lesson he would remember through life, namely that ‘Money must be viewed purely as a means to an end’. 

 

He continued working with his father, at the same time pursuing private financial matters.  His first private venture failed, costing him $100,000 dollars.  Work on his first private lease had been delegated to a contractor who subsequently proved unworthy of Getty’s confidence.  Getty again turned failure into a valuable lesson.  His autobiography quotes him ‘Another secret is never to delegate your authority in strictly administrative matters.  ‘If you want a thing done well, do it yourself’, said Benjamin Franklin.  I do everything myself’.

 

During the 30s depression, his advisors recommended selling out.  Instead Getty bought.  Those leases offered by his competitors at a fraction of their worth, Getty snapped up.  His faith in the future, and in himself, would shortly be rewarded.  Explaining his actions, Getty said ‘Any businessman who goes against popular opinion must expect to be thwarted, scoffed at, and cursed.  This is what made my fortune’.

 

It is here that Getty has a lot to offer others.  By refusing to follow popular opinion, by not caring what his counterparts thought of him, by facing criticism, Getty’s fortunes were to multiply many times over, until finally, in 1920 he became the major force in the American oil industry. 

 

Over to Getty:  ‘While I have seldom, if ever, set out purposely and with malice aforethought to flout convention and demolish icons, I have never felt obligated to do this, that or another thing, merely because it was what others were doing’.

 

‘Whether you like it or not, there is such a thing as a millionaire’s mentality’

 

RAY KROC

 

Ray Kroc, the man behind McDonald’s, is the one we turn to for proof that advanced years are no barrier to success, and it wasn’t until he was in his 50s that Kroc achieved any real measure of wealth.

 

Kroc dropped out of school and tried a variety of small-time jobs, before starting a small company to distribute multimixers - machines which would make a number of milkshakes simultaneously.  This, however, was not where his fortune would lie, but he was on the right lines, in the fast food catering industry.  In the early 1950s, Kroc called on a firm of brothers, who, although running a very small restaurant, were actually using eight of Kroc’s mixers, more than anyone else.  The sight that greeted Kroc would soon popularise one of the most profitable marketing methods of all time -  franchising.

 

Kroc found the two brothers operating a fast food line in hamburgers and milkshakes.  Business was booming and Kroc asked why they hadn’t opened more restaurants.  The brothers, skilled at running their own small concern, had no ambitions to move on to bigger, more profitable things.   They did however, agree to let Kroc franchise outlets in other parts of the country, in exchange for a share of the gross takings, to the tune of 1/2%.  McDonald’s was born in 1954; in 1960 Kroc purchased the McDonald name and by the mid-1970s hundreds of branches were franchised throughout the world. 

 

He wasn’t studious by any means, but Kroc possessed an enormous abundance of business acumen, albeit his first venture, as partner in a music store, failed abysmally.  Undeterred, Kroc went on to pastures new.  Again, although Kroc admitted a fear of failure, he was another who stubbornly refused to give in, even when things seemed to be at an all-time low.  ‘I have always believed that every man creates his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems’.  ‘Think small and you will stay small’.  ‘Where there’s not risk there’s no pride in anything you do, so there can be no happiness in it’.

 

He was another who believed in sleeping as little as possible.  But what sleep he did have, he made the most of.  ‘My secret was in getting the most out of every minute of rest.  I guess I couldn’t have averaged more than six hours of sleep a night.  Many times I got four hours or less.  But I slept as hard as I worked.  I hated to be idle for a minute.  I was determined to live well and have nice things, too .....’

 

Kroc never retired.  He worked right to the end of his life, constantly seeking new places to set up restaurants and motivating his team of franchisees.

 

More millionaire mentality from Kroc:

 

‘I’m convinced that I’m a winner’.

 

‘I believe in God, in the family and in McDonald’s, but at work, this order is reversed’.

 

And, finally, we turn to the most prestigious of role models:

 

‘Act according to your faith.  Everything is possible to the person who believes’.  Jesus Christ