Daring to Dream: Lessons in Success from 'The Founder' and Icons

This is the fifth time I've watched the movie 'The Founder', and each time I manage to see it from a different angle and draw new conclusions.

My conclusions, in order of importance (the first being the most important):

1) To succeed, you must be a gambler. Those who don't take risks in life will never achieve great success. Ray Kroc put his life on the line for the idea of getting rich. He risked his house on McDonald's, while his peers were thinking about a peaceful retirement. He gambled everything at 52 and could have ended up homeless, but the cards fell right, and he became a multi-millionaire who founded the world's largest food chain. This is relevant to all successful people. Elon Musk put his last $5 million in Tesla and SpaceX when they were failing, risking his last money. Ronaldo and Messi bet on their lives, investing from age 0 in a field where the chance of making a living is less than one percent, choosing to gamble instead of a "safe track."

The size of the risk is usually proportional to the reward.

2) Believing in yourself is nice to have – persistence is a must! Ray Kroc believed in every idea he started, from disposable cups to chairs, mixers, etc. But without persistence, he would never have made it to McDonald's! What brought him success was persistence and sticking to the goal of "getting rich," "building something big." Elon Musk said in interviews that he didn't believe Tesla could succeed, thinking his chances were less than 3%. Will Smith also talked about how he never focuses on believing in the final outcome but persists in every milestone, trying to do his best.

He claims he's not talented or smart, but if you get on a treadmill with him, he will either win or die – a classic example of persistence!

3) You must be naive and open-minded because big successes start with things that don't make sense! It's very risky, and you might get badly burned, fall into various scams, or trust people who will harm you. But without naivety and an open mind, there's no chance to start anything at all because we will always look for the catch and a billion reasons why it won't succeed! Every great success started with something illogical: it's illogical to risk your house on a nice restaurant idea, to invest 15 years in football with a 1% chance of making a living, to put your last $5 million on a business with a near-zero chance of success.

The movie explicitly shows how Ray Kroc believed in everything presented to him, highlighting the stark contrast between him and the McDonald brothers.

They offered him artificial milkshakes - yes!

Someone gave him the idea of buying land wherever he opened a restaurant - yes!

Ray, like a naive child, believed everything and was ready to try anything immediately without much thought.

4) The name of the game is "beating the statistics" – because not everything depends on us!

Ray Kroc was not exceptionally smart or talented, nor did he have a unique idea; he used someone else's idea. He persisted, was in the right place at the right time, encountered the right thing, and it worked. If he had given up on his first venture in his 20s, there would be no McDonald's. He just managed to beat the statistics.

This is something I hear in many interviews with successful people! Elon Musk didn't invent Tesla, Steve Jobs didn't invent Apple, none of them were really smart or had a revolutionary idea. They succeeded against all odds.

Elon Musk shared in an interview that Tesla and SpaceX were close to bankruptcy, with only three weeks to survive! At the last minute, things fell into place for him, the last launch was successful, investors agreed to invest in Tesla just before bankruptcy, etc. Any different element would have erased Elon Musk, and today he might have been a waiter instead of a multi-billionaire.

Success depends 10-20% on the entrepreneur (at best, if you're Elon Musk) and 90-80% on a combination of circumstances.

That's why item 2 justifies itself even more!

5) Goals: Think big! Those who don't live in a movie will never be able to create a new reality, establish a billion-dollar company, or become a successful footballer.

The difference between Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers is that they wanted to be the best restaurant in the neighborhood, and he wanted to establish a billion-dollar chain. If you don't see the goal, it doesn't matter how fast you go or where you go in life; you will never know if you have reached your destination or not.

Thank you to those who read this far, Facebook remind me of this post in a year so I don't forget to watch the movie again :)

Along with The Founder, I also watched 'The Social Network' (about Mark Zuckerberg), Steve Jobs

, War Dogs, The Wolf of Wall Street.