Don’t desist to persist #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

I watched the movie ‘The Founder’ over the weekend. It’s the story of Ray Kroc, the person credited to making McDonalds an empire from a single store and ‘the most successful fast food operation in the world’.

Ray Kroc was a travelling salesman. He sold paper cups, pianos and milk-shake mixer machines door-to-door, till he chanced upon McDonalds at the age of… wait for it…wait for it…wait for it… 52!

There are a whole bunch of business lessons in the movie for entrepreneurs, founders and aliens alike but the one that probably is at the core and resonates throughout the movie (and his career) comes best from this dialogue at the end of the movie where he’s preparing for a speech.

Ray Kroc says: “I know what you’re thinking. How the heck does a fifty two year old, over the hill, milkshake machine salesman build a fast food empire with 1600 restaurants and an annual revenue of seven hundred million dollars?

One word: Persistence!”

It reminded me of a same same but different Steve Jobs quote, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

I think they might be bonding well in the after-life.