The Golden Opportunity

Golden Opportunities is a collection of over two dozen profiles of people who launched their very successful careers with McDonalds. The book also includes 12 key “principles for success” that led to such remarkable careers as Katie Kouric’s, Jay Leno’s, and Jeff Bezos’. All of these individuals started their job path based on the foundations of their first job at their hometown McDonald’s. Author, Cody Teets, Vice President of McDonald’s and VP/general manager of the Rocky Mountain Region, also made her way up from crew member to corporate office. What do 20 million Americans have in common with Tonight Show host Jay Leno, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, actress Andie MacDowell, and former White House chief of staff Andrew Card? They all started their working careers at a McDonald’s restaurant, learning some of the most important lessons of their lives. Golden Opportunity is a myth-busting collection of 44 profiles of people who went from flipping burgers to building remarkable careers in business, the arts, politics, science, the military, and sports. Over the past six decades, millions of teens have earned their first paychecks under the Golden Arches. Whether they stayed for a year or a career, they learned work habits, basic skills, and the business principles that have made McDonald’s one of the best-run companies in the world. Their journeys remind us that at the beginning of every success story there is the first paycheck from the first “real” job. That first job is not a dead end, it is a young person’s rite of passage into adult responsibility. The author’s compelling personal story—growing up in modest circumstances with a strong work ethic—gives a unique voice to the experiences of leading entrepreneurs, entertainment figures, and others who represent a cross section of American enterprise. They recall what they learned in their first jobs at McDonald’s and how those lessons helped them build their remarkable careers. Including a foreword by Willard Scott—the original Ronald McDonald—and the 10 Golden Opportunity Keys to Success, this collection of stories will leave you wondering what today’s burger flippers will achieve tomorrow. Visit GoldenOpportunityBook.com to learn more and share your own story.

By the time of his death, Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was the founder of Singapore and Governor of Java, having left school in his early teens to become a clerk for the British East India Company. Charismatic and daring, Raffles forged an extraordinary path for himself in South East Asia - refusing to be satisfied with the trading posts available to the British, he defied Dutch governors and wrangled with warring local rulers to establish what is now a world city. An ardent linguist and zoologist, Raffles spoke fluent Malay and found time to write The History of Java, as well as naming several species of flora and fauna he discovered on his travels. He founded London Zoo and promoted the study of Malay alongside European languages in Southeast Asia. Raffles remains a controversial figure - a utopian imperialist, disobedient employee and knight of the realm who died deeply in debt, predeceased by all but one of his children. He built racial segregation into his urban planning, but was also a staunch abolitionist. Renowned biographer Victoria Glendinning charts Raffles' prodigious rise in this new edition, specially updated for the bicentenary of the foundation of Singapore in 1819. His life was short, complicated and shot through with tragedy, but Raffles' fame lives on.

The reader will have an inside view and will be touched by the day to day and years of experiences of the joy, challenges, new adventures, and so much laughter shared between the author, her mother, her family, and so many other wonderful people.

The reader will have an inside view and will be touched by the day to day and years of experiences of the joy, challenges, new adventures, and so much laughter shared between the author, her mother, her family, and so many other wonderful people.

An instant bestseller in Canada, The Golden Son is a "sensitive and intelligent work" with an unforgettable story of family, responsibility, love, honour and tradition, in which two childhood friends must balance the expectations of their culture and their families with the desires of their own hearts (National Post). Author of the bestselling Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s The Golden Son is about a young Indian doctor who leaves his village for a residency in the US. But he grapples with the expectation that as the oldest son, he is expected to inherit the mantle of arbiter for all village disputes. And he finds himself torn between a beautiful American girl and his old childhood friend.