Writing about growing up in a bad part of town reminded me of a summer experience.
I had the opportunity for a summer in Paris after my first year in college. I couldn’t afford to stay without some income, but didn’t speak enough French to do much. I searched as long as I could until my money was about to run out — probably about a week — then took a fast food job to avoid having to come home. I worked in the Burger King by the Georges V stop on the Champs-Elysees. I don’t know if it’s still there or not.
Now that I think of it, I stopped eating meat the school year after, so seeing the operation from the inside may have influenced my eating meat.
I happened to work the day Greg LeMond came from behind 50 seconds to win the 1989 Tour de France by 8 seconds, one of the great sporting achievements of all time (assuming they didn’t use drugs, which seems unlikely for professional cycling).
In any case, the job kept me in Paris, where I went to live a again for a year a year later, as opposed to going home.
Anyway, not a big leadership post, just some background and a cool anecdote.
About Joshua
Former rocket scientist now entrepreneur, leadership coach, speaker, and artist, Joshua Spodek (PhD ’00, Astrophysics; MBA ’06; both Columbia University) has succeeded at many big things that few people even try. More importantly, he loves everything he does.
A modern renaissance man, he studied with Nobel Prize winners and helped build a European Space Agency X-ray satellite to observe supernova remnants, then started a business now operating globally based on several of his patents. He coaches leadership with the Columbia Business School Program on Social Intelligence and taught at New York University and the New School. He earned five Ivy-League diplomas; has shown his art in solo gallery shows and museums and installed large public art in New York and around the world; socializes with Academy Award winners; ran five marathons; and competed at national and global sporting events.
He has been quoted and profiled in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Fortune, CNN, and the major broadcast networks. Esquire Magazine named him “Best and Brightest” in its annual Genius issue.
More here:
http://joshuaspodek.com/about
Juste un bonjour.
Sorry to say, BK leaved France in 1997, not believing in a future for his second place to be profitable.
Actually, France is the first profitable market for McDonald’s outside USA.
Au revoir.