After being born and raised in Michigan and moving to Texas to open our first McDonald’s restaurant, it never occurred to me that there would be an adjustment in learning the lingo of the South. I will never forget some of the language barriers we encountered, especially in the drive-thru.

The first week of opening, a man approached the drive-thru speaker, ordered a Quarter pounder with cheese, and said, “Cut the onions.”

The manager, who was also from Michigan, happened to take the man’s order and immediately said, “Sir, the onions are already cut up.”

Right away, one of the crew explained to the manager what the customer meant: "Cut the onions means no onions on the hamburger.”

While I have always been interested in eating healthy, exercising, and drinking plenty of water, I became certified as a Sports Nutritionist while owning 7 McDonald’s restaurants. This didn’t always float well when a woman approached the counter one day and asked for a soft drink with 8 sugar packets.

I looked at her and asked, “Are you taking calcium supplements?” knowing that the phosphorous in soda blocks calcium absorption to the bones, not to mention all that additional sugar was not good for her either.

Needless to say, I needed to get out of the business, and though we had a few more language barriers, I learned more about Texas, which became near and dear to my heart, and lived there for twenty-two years.

During that time, we thought it would be smart to apply the principles of running McDonald’s to the gym business and managed to open 14 World Gyms in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

At first, we applied for the Gold’s Gym franchise, but there was already a franchise in the area, so we switched to World Gym. This prompted a slogan we put up with the World Gym logo on billboards all over Texas, “Why settle for the gold when you can have the world?”

It wasn’t enough to have the gyms for workouts; we wanted to provide a way for our members to get something healthy before or after a workout, so we built our first Smoothie King franchise inside one of our largest gyms. It was a big hit, and we were recognized in Inc. Business magazine for putting a franchise inside another franchise. This led to Smoothie Kings in five states.