In 1937 Patrick McDonald opened up a restaurant near the airport in Monrovia, CA. Hamburgers were a dime and orange juice was a nickel. In 1940 his sons, Maurice and Richard, moved it to San Bernardino and renamed it McDonalds BBQ. Business was brisk, and they needed to find a way to deliver the product more quickly to their customers. So they invented a never-before-seen “assembly line” system for making hamburgers. They called it the “Speedy System.” Business got better. They even created a mascot named “Speedy,” and had neon signs made with animated whirling legs, running fast to serve the customer. (But they dropped that when they realized that the Alka-Seltzer mascot looked similar and was named “Speedy” too. They didn’t want their hamburgers associated with Alka-Seltzer. Imagine that…)

Nevertheless, Maurice and Richard had a great idea with their system that would revolutionize the restaurant industry in America. In 1953 they franchised their Speedy System to two other sites, one in Phoenix, and one in Downey, CA. In 1954 one of their vendors who sold them milkshake machines was intrigued by the fact that their San Bernardino site was using 8 of their machines. His name was Ray Kroc. Convinced that the McDonalds formula was the key to incredible success, he pressed them to franchise their restaurants and production system throughout the country. They hesitated. They resisted the idea. The end of this story is that Ray Kroc bought out the McDonalds boys, and the rest is history. 34,000 McDonalds worldwide!

Now here’s my question to you…Why is it that the best the McDonald brothers were able to do is 3 stores in 2 states? They were creative, hard working, and had good business skills and were sitting on top of untold success. Why just 3 stores? Because that’s as big as their vision was. Ray Kroc was not more creative…in fact probably less so. He was a good business man, but not a better businessman than the McDonald brothers. He didn’t work any harder than they did. But he had one thing that the McDonald brothers did not have… He had a large vision.

Your achievements will never exceed your vision, so make your vision audacious. If you can describe your vision out loud in front of the mirror and keep a straight face, then you need a grander vision. Goethe said, “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “Success is the child of audacity.

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