failures will occur principally because: (1) they are overleveraged and can’t service their debts, (2) their markets have shifted and they have been unable to react to the change, (3) they don’t have a working strategy designed to give customers value, or (4) they have an uninspired workforce lacking leadership.
The second advantage will involve the future formation of a number of different businesses and new industries. Workers of all ages should remain sensitive to the developments which are already taking place. These developments point to a window of opportunity for them, and it is just around the corner. This “gloom and doom” forecasting is bunk.
Remember, the commercial jet age didn’t begin until the 1960s. No one ever heard of television broadcasting until we were approaching the 1950s. Motels and fast food didn’t exist. In 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon—the space age dawned. Just imagine these questions in context of that time: What is a “computer”? What does “software” mean? Can you explain “analog,” “digital,” “streaming,” and “DVD”? What do you mean by “heart transplant,” “fiber optic cable,” “satellites in orbit,” “Walmart,” or “nuclear”? What is a cell phone? “Interstate Highway System”? The point is that new business opportunities open up constantly and will continue to develop at an ever-increasing rate. Opportunity exists around every corner.
If I were a young person today, I would use credit cards very cautiously. I think too many Americans have taken on too much debt and not enough of them have given the proper amount of thought to saving, budgeting expenses, or planning for retirement. The seeds of trouble are there—the sudden loss of income can seriously disrupt people’s lives. Ours is the most debt-driven society in the world. A lot of personal despair could be avoided by using better sense and better planning.
What are the common threads? Preparation and planning; being current so you are savvy enough to recognize the opportunities that cross your path, and ready to seize them when they do; and having the ability to sidestep pitfalls that disguise themselves as solutions.
Written at a time that was rife with change at every level—often coming at breakneck pace—this book will not only recall a number of bonehead decisions I made (and there were quite a few of them), but also summon a recollection of some of the people I met and the lessons I learned, both good and bad.
This book is the story of my life, both its successes and failures in business and personally. How did I embrace innovation and change? How did I recognize the opportunity to grow the glimmer of an idea into one of the most widely recognized and trusted brands in the world?
My success with Burger King was unique in that I succeeded where others failed. Many of us jumped into the new market of fast-food restaurants, but only a few of us made it out in one piece. I locate most of the keys to my success in working hard and partnering with the right people, particularly Dave Edgerton and the incredible franchisees that helped Burger King grow so quickly. I hope in writing this that others can learn from my mistakes and triumphs to succeed in their own endeavors.
Jim McLamore, 1996
Jim McLamore with his siblings: Claire and David
What are the major factors in determining a person’s character, attitude, behavior, and sense of values? It is a question that begs an answer, but in my judgment, it suggests that a child’s early development has a lot to do with it. I would venture to say that personality traits are rather well established long before a child becomes a teenager. Childhood is a time in life when priorities become established, values are determined, and a person’s mindset is created. By the time I was ten years old, I had developed a fair sense of the things I thought were important, including my family. I was guided by their influence and what they taught me.
I came to understand the importance of parental love and guidance at an early age, having lost my mother at age three and my father at twenty-one. The years spent with my family shaped so many parts of me and instilled a sense of purpose in my life. This is not to suggest that it saved me from making a lot of dumb mistakes later on—many of them during my business career.
I was born in 1926, in New York City. My father, Thomas Milton McLamore, was born on July 5, 1889, in Texas and came from a poor family, which ultimately settled in Louisiana. I don’t really remember much of my mother. She was born Marian Floyd Whitman and, as an only child, led a comfortable life. She met my father, a handsome lieutenant in the US Army, who had recently returned from service in France. Falling in love after meeting her, he soon proposed, and they married on April 30, 1923.
Economic times in the United States just prior to 1926 were very good. The country was growing rapidly, and the Whitman family business was successful, enabling the family to live in style. Grandfather Whitman had bought Edgehill, the family farm in Central Valley, New York, and it became an important focus of life for the Whitman family.
After I was born, Mother and Father bought a home and moved to Montclair, New Jersey, within easy commuting distance of New York City. My sister, Claire, arrived on February 3, 1924. I arrived on May 30, 1926, and my brother David on February 18, 1928. The family lived in the Montclair residence until a deepening national economic crisis developed, which culminated in the stock market crash in October of 1929. This event virtually wiped out the family fortune and drastically changed the lifestyle of my parents, maternal grandparents, and many Americans alike. Within a few weeks, stock prices plunged over 40 percent and led to the Great Depression, the worst economic disaster in the nation’s history.
James Spurr Whitman, my grandfather, died in that frantic year of 1929 at seventy-six years old. I feel certain that the crash of 1929 was largely responsible for his death, inasmuch as the family fortune had simply evaporated. The realization of this loss must have been devastating to him.
In short order, the family sold the New York City townhouse and the home in Montclair and moved to Edgehill. The shock of the Depression and the loss of the family wealth had a terrible effect on Mother; she was committed to a sanitarium shortly after my brother David was born. I never saw her again and she died in 1933. The Whitman wealth was gone, and my father lost his job in New York City as the Depression deepened. Times were grim.
I became deeply attached to Edgehill, the only home I knew as a young boy. But during the summer of 1933, there was a fire in the hay stores, and while the livestock was saved, Edgehill as a working farm was no more. What the fire did not finish, the rising tide of the Depression did.
In order to make ends meet, Grandmother began to sell her most prized possessions, which included her silverware, china, furniture, and jewelry. She was also forced to sell about half of the two hundred-acre Edgehill farm to the Cornell family. Even as a little boy, it was evident at the time that things were changing. Through it all, Grandmother was a tower of strength. She never let on that these were stressful times for her or that she was worried about holding the family together.
This lovable grandmother of mine took every blow in stride with a fierce determination to see the family through. In 1929, she was sixty-five years old. Her doctors had warned her she had a weak heart and should be careful about overexerting herself. Dad’s job at the bank required him to take a train to New York every Sunday night and return after work on Fridays. This meant that Grandmother had to play the role of mother and part-time father; she played it beautifully.
My education began in September of 1931, a few months after my fifth birthday. Throughout
