Grinding It Out

I am 35 as I am writing this. Ray Kroc was 52 when he did. I always thought I would be super successful at a young age like Mark Zuckerberg. As I have gotten older I have really tried hard and been persistent at things but haven't had the success that I envisaged at my age. I have really appreciated this book for its positive message and also for his optimism at his age. I think its very refreshing hearing about a 52 whos just even that excited about something.

I also like how he just tooks again and again about the power of hard work.

As long as you're green you're growing, as soon as you're ripe you start to rot.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

There's almost nothing you can't accomplish if you set your mind to it.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

Happiness is not a tangible thing, it’s a byproduct of achievement. Achievement must be made against the possibility of failure, against the risk of defeat.

It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor. Where there is no risk, there can be no pride in achievement and, consequently, no happiness.

The only way we can advance is by going forward, individually and collectively, in the spirit of the pioneer.

We must take the risks involved in our free enterprise system. This is the only way in the world to economic freedom. There is no other way.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

I believe that if you think small, you’ll stay small.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

I’ve always dealt fairly in business, even when I believed someone was trying to take advantage of me.

That’s one reason I have had to grind away incessantly to achieve success.

In some ways I guess I’m naive.

I always take a man at his word unless he’s given me a reason not to, and I’ve worked out many a satisfactory deal on the strength of a handshake.

On the other hand, I’ve been taken to the cleaners often enough to make me a certified cynic.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful individuals with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

In essence, the message was always the same, “I want one of those mixers of yours like the McDonald brothers have in San Bernardino, California.”

I got curiouser and curiouser.

Who were these McDonald brothers, and why were customers picking up on the Multimixer from them when I had similar machines in lots of places?

(The machine, by this time had five spindles instead of six.)

So I did some checking and was astonished to learn that the McDonalds had not one Multimixer, not two or three, but eight!

The mental picture of eight Multimixers churning out forty shakes at one time was just too much to be believed.

These mixers sold at $150 apiece, mind you, and that was back in 1954.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

One night the revenue agents outmaneuvered the Palm Island security men and we all wound up in jail.

I was mortified.

My parents would disown me if they found out I had been put in jail with a bunch of common violators of the prohibition law.

We were only there three hours, but it was one of the most uncomfortable 180-minute periods of my life.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

I had left Florida in the nick of time, it turned out.

The business decline that began when the real estate boom collapsed caught up with the nightclubs soon after I left.

The Silent Night closed its gates for good.

Palm Island popped into the news once in a while as time went by.

Al Capone built a home there.

Then Lou Walters, father of TV’s Barbara Walters, opened the Latin Quarter.

But it was to be a long time before I saw Florida again.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

When I flew back to Chicago that fateful day in 1954, I had a freshly signed contract with the McDonald brothers in my briefcase.

I was a battle-scarred veteran of the business wars, but I was still eager to go into action.

I was 52 years old.

I had diabetes and incipient arthritis.

I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns.

But I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

If you believe in something, you've got to be in it to the ends of your toes.

Taking reasonable risks is part of the challenge.

It's the fun.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well.

We demonstrated this emphasis on details, and saw it pay off, in our approach to hamburger patties.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.

—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

I refused to worry about more than one thing at a time, and I would not let useless fretting about a problem, no matter how important, keep me from sleeping.

This is easier said than done.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out

A little bit of luck helps, yes, but the key element, which too many in our affluent society have forgotten, is still hard work—grinding it out.

Ray Kroc - Grinding It Out