Be honest: when was the last time you genuinely craved a hamburger from McDonald’s? I didn’t ask when the last time you actually went to McDonald’s was. My guess is you’ve been to McDonald’s at least once in the past few months. Why? Because you couldn’t find greasy fries anywhere else? Because you just couldn’t resist their fresh, juicy chicken nuggets?

No. More likely you went because McDonald’s branding is so ingrained in your mind that you subconsciously associated your hunger and lack of time or money with “I’m lovin’ it.”

Come on, is McDonald’s really all that great? If he could, my roommate would interject here and give a heartfelt testimonial of the luscious Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, his not-so-secret lover. Or perhaps the succulent Premium Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT. My personal opinion? It’s less the taste and more the perceived value that McDonald’s marketing has given him.

Maybe it’s just me. But probably not.

In this case and in many cases, it’s not what you sell—it’s how you sell it. McDonald’s is a brilliant marketing company, not a tempting hamburger company. They succeed in spite of their menu, not because of it.

In that sense, we can all learn something from those golden arches.

I grew up a diehard fan of the Utah Jazz. John Stockton, Karl Malone, and Jeff Hornacek were more than household names to me — they were heroes. Logged away somewhere in the back of my mind I also knew that the team was owned by Larry H. Miller, but I knew little about him except that he liked cars. And that was enough for me.

I learned a lot more about Larry H. Miller today, and it made me wonder if perhaps I was mistaken in selecting my childhood heroes. I’m currently enrolled in a class entitled “Financing New Ventures” (the title alone couldn’t better reflect my own interests and business passion…but I’ll save that for another post). My professor was a student of the late Larry H. Miller and spent the first half hour today relating admirable anecdotes and inspiring advice from this remarkable man’s life.

His stories of faith, success, and trial are remarkable; however, what most impressed me were his “10 Principles of Entrepreneurship,” as I believe they apply to just about anything in life.

According to Larry H. Miller, an entrepreneur is someone who understands the following:

1. Hard work
2. Risk and reward
3. Supply and demand
4. How to “feel” a marketplace
5. Overcoming fear of failure
6. The principle of goal setting
7. Having a vision and being willing to go forward with it — even when no one else shares the vision
8. It can indeed be lonely at the top, but goes there anyway
9. The relationship between freedom and free enterprise
10. Someone who understands that the place he lives and works should be better when he leaves than when he came because he was there

A book could be written about each of these points, but mentioning them should be enough to get you thinking. We’re all entrepreneurs — even if not in the business sense.

And so, today’s challenge: pick one or two items from the list that you feel you currently struggle with or don’t understand. Write them down. For the next week, make a concentrated effort each day to apply that one aspect of “entrepreneurship” in everything you do.

I’ll be doing the same, and I’ll report back. I’d love hearing about your experiences.