My highlights from this book:  

1. I never considered my dreams wasted energy. They were invariably linked to some form of action. 

2. It was a restaurant stripped down to the minimum in service and menu. Of course, the simplicity of the procedures allowed the McDonald’s to concentrate on quality in every step. That was the trick.

3. 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 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. 

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

5. The advertising campaign was a smash hit. It turned Californians into our parking lots as though blindfolds had been removed from their eyes, and suddenly they could see the golden arches. 

6. I put the hamburger on the assembly line. 

7. I was going to make a living at it and to hell with moonlighting of any kind. I intended to devote every ounce of my energy to selling, and that’s exactly what I did.

8. You are not going to get it for free. You have to take risks. In some cases you must go for broke. If you believe in something, you’ve got to be in it to the ends of your toes.

9. I learned how to keep problems from crushing me. I refused to worry about more than one thing at a time, and I would not let useless fretting about a problem keep me from sleeping.I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be bright and fresh and able to deal with customers in the morning.

10. I was just like a lot of show business personalities who work away quietly at their craft for years, and then, suddenly, they get the right break and make it big. I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night.

Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and share the key insights on Founders podcast. This is episode #7.