After 39 years of business, I'm still learning. I go through this every year -identifying new strategies that are extremely important.

Every time I come across learning items of interest, I'll send distribution voice mail to the appropriate group in the organization.

In 1974, we began franchising. We didn't have any big thought process except that, 'OK, franchising will help us get to our goal of 32 stores and help us run stores farther away from home.'

Higher unemployment generally bodes well for franchising. People are looking for a new opportunity, and people who have jobs are a little less confident they'll always have a job.

I'd started working when I was 21 and had been very determined about my career, very focused, even as a little kid, so it was something I had been working at for a long time.

When my playing career stopped and Old Dominion asked me to be an assistant, I was reluctant about it because I didn't aspire to be a coach, and I didn't know if I had the qualities to be a coach.

For me it was sort of career suicide to work in color, but I did it because I perceived myself from an early stage to be interested in seasonality - the changing of the seasons - that's what I deeply loved.

I have followed my heart my whole life - the crazy kid, a contrarian by nature, and I've been in trouble in points in my career.