A terrific lesson on Goal Setting & Achieving

Hi Everyone,

What an incredible week at the Firestone household. Business is amazing and the momentum is awesome since getting back from our Super Saturday Event in Las Vegas. Our Associates are getting qualified, and we are headed to Cancun in about 6 weeks. This Liberty Conference will be ground breaking. Get in touch with me for more information on how to join us.

Our new home in Hilton Head, South Carolina is almost finished and is looking pretty incredible. Brandon is getting ready to move into his NYC apartment & needless to say, he is totally psyched. Yesterday, we celebrated Jacks birthday. We had a romantic dinner at Carlton on the Park, and then went to an IMAX Theatre to see Harry Potter. Bigger than life. It really was a perfect week. Hope yours was too.

Do whatever it takes to create your dreams. Everyday you wake up, make the choice to have a good or great day. Life should be fantastic, incredible, awsome, healthy, prosperous, and full of love and happiness. Life is about sharing and giving. Celebrate the journey as you take the actions to reach your goals. Do something different.

I came across this story today, and shared it will all of my business associates. I decided to share it with all of you too. I get updates from Bob Proctor, well known author and best known for "The Secret." http://thesecret.tv/ If you have not yet watched this ground breaking DVD, definately, check it out later.

Here is the Friday story that he shared ...


This true story reflects exactly what I am talking about. Anyone, and absolutely everyone can reach their personal and financial goals, if they are crystal clear on what those goals are. You must be willing to be patient while you are taking the necessary action, and determined like you've never been before. You must be willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes, because it is that important to you. NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF, NO MATTER WHO TELLS YOU "YOU CAN'T or WON'T SUCCEED!" You must believe in yourself and NEVER EVER give up on your dreams. If you would walk away from your dreams and your goals, then they are just simply not important enough or meaningful enough for you to go after.

Read this story, find your passion, role up your sleeves, get your DMO in place, take the action, and know you will succeed. Have an awesome weekend ... Life is Beautiful, it really is!


A Lifetime of Planning Pays Off

"You gotta be crazy!" That's what Lee Dunham's friends told him back in 1971 when he gave up a secure job as a police officer and invested his life savings in the notoriously risky restaurant business. This particular restaurant was more than just risky, it was downright dangerous. It was the first McDonald's franchise in the city of New York - smack in the middle of crime-ridden Harlem.

Lee had always had plans. When other kids were playing ball in the empty lots of Brooklyn, Lee was playing entrepreneur, collecting milk bottles and returning them to grocery stores for the deposits. He had his own shoeshine stand and worked delivering newspapers and groceries. Early on, he promised his mother that one day she would never again have to wash other people's clothes for a living. He was going to start his own business and support her. "Hush your mouth and do your homework," she told him. She knew that no member of the Dunham family had ever risen above the level of laborer, let alone owned a business. "There's no way you're going to open your own business," his mother told him repeatedly.

Years passed, but Lee's penchant for dreaming and planning did not. After high school, he joined the Air Force, where his goal of one day owning a family restaurant began to take shape. He enrolled in the Air Force food service school and became such an accomplished cook he was promoted to the officers' dining hall.

When he left the Air Force, he worked for four years in several restaurants, including one in the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Lee longed to start his own restaurant but felt he lacked the business skills to be successful. He signed up for business school and took classes at night while he applied and was hired to be a police officer.

For fifteen years he worked full-time as a police officer. In his off-hours, he worked part-time as a carpenter and continued to attend business school. "I saved every penny I earned as a police officer," he recalled. "For ten years, I didn't spend one dime - there were no movies, no vacations, no trips to the ballpark. There were only work and study and my lifelong dream of owning my own business." By 1971, Lee had saved $42,000, and it was time for him to make his vision a reality.

Lee wanted to open an upscale restaurant in Brooklyn. With a business plan in hand, he set out to seek financing. The banks refused him. Unable to get funding to open an independent restaurant, lee turned to franchising and filled out numerous applications. McDonald's offered him a franchise, with one stipulation: Lee had to set up a McDonald's in the inner-city, the first to be located there. McDonald's wanted to find out if its type of fast-food restaurant could be successful in the inner city. It seemed that Lee might be the right person to operate that first restaurant.

To get the franchise, Lee would have to invest his life savings and borrow $150,000 more. Everything for which he'd worked and sacrificed all those years would be on the line - a very thin line if he believed his friends. Lee spent many sleepless nights before making his decision. In the end, he put his faith in the years of preparation he'd invested - the dreaming, planning, studying and saving - and signed on the dotted line to operate the first inner-city McDonald's in the United States.

The first few months were a disaster. Gang fights, gunfire, and other violent incidents plagued his restaurant and scared customers away. Inside, employees stole his food and cash, and his safe was broken into routinely. To make matters worse, Lee couldn't get any help from McDonald's headquarters; the company's representatives were too afraid to venture into the ghetto. Lee was on his own.

Although he had been robbed of his merchandise, his profits, and his confidence, Lee was not going to be robbed of his dream. Lee fell back on what he had always believed in - preparation and planning.

Lee put together a strategy. First, he sent a strong message to the neighborhood thugs that McDonald's wasn't going to be their turf. To make his ultimatum stick, he needed to offer an alternative to crime and violence. In the eyes of those kids, Lee saw the same look of helplessness he had seen in his own family. He knew that there was hope and opportunity in that neighborhood and he was going to prove it to the kids. He decided to serve more than meals to his community - he would serve solutions.

Lee spoke openly with gang members, challenging them to rebuild their lives. Then he did what some might say was unthinkable: he hired gang members and put them to work. He tightened up his operation and conducted spot checks on cashiers to weed out thieves. Lee improved working conditions and once a week he offered his employees classes in customer service and management. He encouraged them to develop personal and professional goals. He always stressed two things: his restaurant offered a way out of a dead-end life and the faster and more efficiently the employees served the customers, the more lucrative that way would be.
In the community, Lee sponsored athletic teams and scholarships to get kids off the streets and into community centers and schools. The New York inner-city restaurant became McDonald's most profitable franchise worldwide, earning more than $1.5 million a year. Company representatives who wouldn't set foot in Harlem months earlier now flocked to Lee's doors, eager to learn how he did it. To Lee, the answer was simple: "Serve the customers, the employees, and the community."

Today, Lee Dunham owns nine restaurants, employs 435 people, and serves thousands of meals every day. It's been many years since his mother had to take in wash to pay the bills. More importantly, Lee paved the way for thousands of African-American entrepreneurs who are working to make their dreams a reality, helping their communities, and serving up hope.
All this was possible because a little boy understood the need to dream, to plan, and to prepare for the future. In doing so, he changed his life and the lives of others.

Cynthia Kersey


Excerpted/Adapted from UnstoppableCopyright 1988 by Cynthia KerseyYou can visit Cynthia's site by going to: www.unstoppable.netCynthia's latest book, Unstoppable Women: Achieve any Breakthrough Goal in Just 30 Days is available by clicking here.