These were my favorite passages from his autobiography: Dave’s Way by Dave Thomas 

“Hard work is good for the soul, and it keeps you from feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t have time.  Four kids were depending on me and I just knew that the Lord would provide, and He did. All my kids grew up to be fine people, David, and your mother was one of the finest. I prayed and prayed and the Almighty heard my prayers.” 

“Quality’s everything, David. Remember that. If people keep cutting corners, this country’s going to be in big  trouble.” 

“My grandmother was headstrong, too. She was a modern woman, no doubt about it. She always knew what she wanted and went after it. She believed in herself. From the very start, I knew that a  woman could do every bit as much as a man, and sometimes more. That’s a lesson I learned from Minnie  Sinclair.” 

“The days I spent with my grandmother were some of the best times of my childhood. The times I spent with my dad were different. He never seemed to be satisfied with the jobs he had,  and because of that, we moved around a lot from city to city. Spending the summers with Minnie Sinclair became the one dependable routine in my life, and I looked forward to these times a lot.” 

“I never remember him hugging me or showing any affection.” 

“But I had learned from my grandmother the importance of doing a job right.”

“and the thickest milkshake they could make, one that you had to eat with a spoon. When I founded Wendy’s,  that was my model for the perfect shake. I worked with chocolate and vanilla ice cream and other ingredients until I came up with just the right taste and smoothness, and I called it a Frosty.” 

“Most of all, I remember watching families sitting together, having a good time while eating out.” 

“By the age of nine I had become a real expert on restaurants. I knew what customers expected and I knew what kind of service and quality was acceptable. I overheard complaints and compliments and I soaked them all in.” 

“There are a lot of kids today in single-parent homes, or who are bounced back and forth between parents in different relationships. That’s a real shame, but I know what it feels like, and I can remember what I did that  helped steer me through some pretty rough times.” 

“Look for people who care about you and learn from them. For some reason, a Mom or Dad may not be there,  or may not be able to help you to learn. Minnie Sinclair filled that role at first for me.” 

“Learn to rely on yourself early. My advice is to keep your eyes on your goal. Work hard toward that goal day by day, minute by minute. It’s like an athlete training for the Olympics, practicing every day with that gold medal in sight. In order to be a success you have to really, really want it and believe that you will get it.” 

“The more you are comfortable with being yourself, the more time you can spend studying other people. One fellow said about me: “The reason [Dave Thomas has] been such a success is because he has a great sense of people. He knows what they like.” If that’s true, and I guess it’s at least partly true, then it’s because I’ve always tried to pay more attention to other people than to myself.” 

“Two of my own personal mentors received the award before I did. I was at the luncheon in the Waldorf-Astoria  Hotel in New York City when Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken,

Through hard work, a burning desire, and integrity, these two men had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.  I never thought that they would be honoring me this way.” 

“Maybe my story encouraged one or two others. If it did, then all the talks were worth it. A lot of young people “have lost faith in the American Way, and I think the only way to win them back is to give them the hard facts about how you can succeed.” 

“It’s more important that you like yourself than for everybody in the world to like you.”

“I’ll never forget my dad’s face when I told him I’d lost my job at Walgreen’s. I thought he would understand about the age and all, but he didn’t. He got so angry I thought the veins in his neck would burst. “I know about the grocery store job, too, David. I checked and they told me you refused to show up for work and got fired.” He slammed his fist on the kitchen table and screamed, “You’ll never keep a job! I’ll be supporting you for the rest  of your life!” I can tell you that moment has stayed with me, and I vowed to myself, “I’ll never lose another job  again.” 

“Frank liked to wear a suit, but he used to say that you didn’t have to wear a suit or expensive clothes to make a  good impression. But he would look for people that were clean and took pride in themselves, especially when he was hiring. If they did that much, he felt, they would take pride in their work.” 

“George Regas was a hard worker who started out running a hot dog stand. He was a proud man who was generous with his praise. He really tried to build a sense of family in all of the Regas employees. He cared about us as people and helped us to work together as a team.” 

“Every Saturday when Gene Rankin and I sat down to eat, I talked to him about someday opening my own business. He told me, “There’s a lot of opportunities out there and you’ll make a lot of money, but you have to set  high goals and work hard to achieve them.” Gene was the first person to hear about my dream of owning a  restaurant.”

“The number one thing they taught me was motivation. Every day either Gene or one of the Regas brothers would pat me on the back and tell me I was doing a good job.” 

“It was really rough going back to living with the family every day. I had had a taste of independence in  Knoxville and I wanted it again.” 

“If I was going to own a restaurant, I wanted to know how to do everyone’s job.” 

“They cared about me and seemed interested in my opinions and how I felt about things.” 

“I remember he was packing his tools outside the trailer, getting ready for the move. “Someday you’ll be proud of me,” I said, choking up. “I’m going to have my own restaurant, and I’m going to be a success.” “I hope you’re right, son,” he said. “Good luck to you.” That was all he said. That was the end of it. After that, I didn’t see him for three years. We sent Christmas cards to each other and talked on the phone once or twice, but I didn’t see him again until I left for the Army.” 

“Except for not finishing high school, that was my strategic plan, and I achieved it all. My plan wasn’t fancy, but it was all that I needed. For some reason, my teacher actually kept the paper. Unbeknownst to me, she would read it over the years to her classes. The writing itself wouldn’t win any prizes, but she thought it was surprising for a tenth-grader to have such a clear idea of what he wanted to do. Maybe the reason that my plan worked was that it was so simple and that it zeroed in on the skills I had to have…not on making a lot of dough.” 

“They were wonderful people, and some of my happiest times were spent with them. I gave them a token amount of money for rent, and they gave me something money can’t buy—a sense of belonging. Esther says that I was fun-loving, and that I liked to debate things in a cheerful way. Maybe. I only know that the family feeling I had  with them and the family feeling of the Hobby House restaurant were stronger than the family I had known at  “home.”

“Don’t be discouraged if an early job doesn’t work out. I was fired from or quit my first six jobs. When you start out, you’re still learning about life. If you make the first job you ever have your career, you could be  lucky…or you could not be asking yourself tough enough questions about what you really want.” 

“Find people you can learn from. Boy, was I lucky to get a one-two punch like the Regas Brothers and then  Phil Clauss! But there are plenty of classy people out there who want to help. Instead of just waiting for somebody to take you under their wing, go out there and find a good wing to climb under.” 

“Find ways to be an entrepreneur. Instead of thinking like a lowly mess sergeant, I was really thinking and acting like an entrepreneur—taking risks, making deals, and creating value in unexpected places.” 

will reward people who get around those rules in a way that doesn’t harm the organization or the people in it.” 

“They made me their underground, unofficial procurement officer. Their permission and their vote of confidence was all that I needed.” 

“I found out later that if Sergeant McCauley wanted anything he just went to his friend the general. And he wanted me. I was grateful to Sergeant McCauley for his trust and I told him I wouldn’t let him down. When anybody gives me their trust, I make sure that I thank them. You can bet that in 1972, when the first twenty  investors each kicked in $50,000 to bankroll Wendy’s first expansion, I said plenty of “thank-yous.” Trust is about the most valuable thing anyone can give you in business, and you can never show too much appreciation for it.” 

“We were doing $40 in food sales when I started, and we ended up grossing $700 a day by the time I left.  Rounding out the menu to match the customer made all the difference.” 

“Even today, in most German businesses, you’ll rarely find a young person in a position with great authority. In  Germany, managers move steadily up the ranks, and the idea of a nineteen-year-old being the boss was something these people could neither understand nor accept. So there was a cultural issue that was already against me.” 

“Good—because we had a reputation for variety. Bad—because it was a devil to manage all that selection and because the customer didn’t see us standing for a particular kind of food.” 

“We later realized that the key to Mac’s success was that he picked a limited menu and stuck with it. We had all these other items on our menu—many of which were good—but the variety killed our focus and made the business much harder to manage.” 

1. Phil taught me that I had the skill of “positive criticism.” He would say: “Dave, out of all my employees, you are the one man who combines criticism with good, sound suggestions and recommendations of what to do.  That’s why I listen to you without flying off the handle.” You see, all I did was apply what Frank and George  Regas had taught me before.” 
2. I taught Phil that you had to promote and keep creating excitement to build the business. I got him into advertising and thought up new ways to get people talking about the restaurants.” 

“Phil, his son Dick, and I used to travel around a lot to see what other restaurant operators were doing. He always said that if you can take a trip and come back home with one new idea, you have paid for the trip. And when you come home, always digest what you have seen. Don’t get too excited and think that you have to change your entire operation to be like someone else’s—you’ll be making a big mistake. Take the time to digest your thoughts and only use the new things you have seen that make sense.” 

“Colonel Sanders claimed his chicken only took thirty minutes because he fried and steamed it in one step. He also claimed it was “a damned sight better” than any chicken anywhere in the United States. And it was exotic.  People in Indiana were curious about chicken that had a “Kentucky” put in front of it. People wanted to try something that they thought was different. I’m sure Kentucky Fried Chicken meant a whole lot more outside of  Kentucky than inside it. It’s still the same today.”

“Why do restaurants outside of New York feature New York strip steaks and restaurants in New York feature  Kansas City strip steaks?” 

“About two months later, I met the Colonel himself. Phil didn’t tell me he was coming to the restaurant where I  worked as an assistant manager. I guess Phil wanted to surprise me, but when the front door swung open, who else could it have been? I had never seen a black suit like that in my life. (The Colonel’s “white suit” period  started later.) The coat had long tails and fit him perfectly. His graying goatee was perfectly trimmed and he carried a gold-tipped cane. Colonel Sanders was one of a kind. He sat down in a corner booth all by himself and ordered a plate of ribs. (Yep, he licked his fingers.) When he was finished, he paid his check and asked to see the manager (meaning me). He introduced himself and asked if I knew him. I pretended I didn’t even though I knew all about him. We sat down over a cup of coffee, and he talked to me like an old friend. I’ve never met a better salesman. When he left, I had a sense this man was going to change my life.” 

“Maybe this Colonel in a white Cadillac had something. Even though I was to make a lot of money in chicken,  the funniest thing was that I personally hated chicken.” 

“When we started selling Kentucky Fried Chicken at the Ranch House, our business really took off. Customers would come in, order chicken at the cash register, and then stand and wait while somebody went to the back to get it. We had people lined up out the door. Kentucky Fried Chicken was a sensation from day one; but why?  We knew it tasted good, but there had to be more to it. We did some customer surveys and found out that people liked the idea of taking food home to eat. It was convenient and saved a lot of time.” 

“Also, people were traveling more. They said they were going to the lake or the park, and the wife (O.K., today it’s the spouse) was home making salads, so with our chicken, their picnic fixings were complete.” 

1. Kentucky Fried Chicken was a turning point in restaurant marketing. Promoting and advertising Kentucky  Fried Chicken was another idea Phil and I pioneered. The Colonel was feeling his way into franchising and no one knew much about it. He sold strictly by word of mouth. He was a great salesman, but he was his only salesman.”

“Image was a new word, franchise was a new word, promotion, marketing and merchandising were all new words in the restaurant business.” 

3. People liked a person backing up their takeout food. People may giggle about the Colonel’s shoe-string tie, his gold-tipped cane, and his white goatee, or his white Cadillac, but they created an image.” 

“Food is a personal thing, and it’s tied closely to family life. People want to know the values of the person who is ladling out the goods. Harland Sanders stood for values that people understood and liked. It was just the next step from what had already happened with packaged goods. Remember, people thought of Betty Crocker and  Uncle Ben as real people behind the products, too.” 

4. Because the Colonel was such a personality, we were able to get him on local TV and radio shows, which led to plenty of free publicity. He really attracted attention in his famous double-breasted white suit with black string tie. It could be the middle of winter, and there’d be this guy in a white suit and goatee, a likable grandfather-type, a master showman, talking about his “secret” recipe of eleven herbs and spices for cooking chicken, America’s hospitality dish. Everybody wants in on a secret, so people listened. He’d get all riled up about the difference between bad fried chicken and good fried chicken, so you’d think it was a federal case.” 

“Colonel said. Another time, we were driving through Hammond, Indiana, during a snowstorm. I was a smoker then, but I didn’t know that he hated smoking. He never told me. The roads were like glass. Suddenly, he made me pull the car to the side of the road, yanked the ashtray from the dashboard, and actually threw it out the window. “I hate smoking,” he fumed. “It makes me sick and I won’t tolerate it!” I didn’t smoke the rest of the trip, but it would have been a lot easier if he just had said something first.” 

“The Colonel’s Recipe for Down-Home Management 1. No good business will go anywhere without high standards. The Colonel was a perfectionist when it came to fixing his chicken. I admired him for sticking to his guns. He didn’t have much money in those days and he wanted his business to grow, but he wasn’t so hungry that he’d let the quality of his product slide. When the Colonel gave us a franchise, he didn’t just ride off into the sunset. He’d come back to check on us every three weeks or so. I can still hear his badgering today: “We want  customers, don’t we?” “We want sales, don’t we?” “And we want to uphold the Colonel’s standards of quality,  don’t we?” He made business standards a personal affair. He was right.”

“Ptomaine and food poisoning really seemed to happen more often back then because many restaurants didn’t have the clear rules and guidelines on storing and cooking food that they do today. Colonel Sanders was a real stickler for cleanliness, and every Wendy’s restaurant today aims to be the same.” 

“If you’re kind to them at the end of the talk, they won’t remember all the yelling that came before.” But the  Colonel was wrong about this, because people do remember all the yelling that came before. They resent it, and it weakens their motivation. So I remember his message, but I use it with a very different style than he did.” 

“That really added to my contacts in the restaurant industry, and that helped later when I was franchising  Wendy’s.” 

• Do what you want. When I say don’t retire, that doesn’t mean that seniors shouldn’t change jobs. More than anything, it’s important that senior citizens be in something they really like to do. Some folks join the Peace  Corps. Others do community service. Still others go into business on their own. Stay active, but stay active doing what YOU want to do.” 

“At first, Kenny said he really wasn’t interested in the chicken business. He saw himself as a hamburger man,  who believed in coffee shops and drive-ins. Then he ordered a chicken dinner and asked me to sit down with him. He began asking all kinds of questions about the Colonel and KFC. I was only the assistant manager of one restaurant in Fort Wayne, and yet he put me on an equal footing with himself. He listened and told me he was impressed with how much I knew about the restaurant business. I told him why I was sold on Kentucky Fried  Chicken, and when he tried it, I think he was convinced himself.” 

“Back then, the fact that Kenny King made more than a $100,000 a year really turned my head. When Kenny pointed to the coffee table in front of us and said it cost $300, he did that to make a point. He told me, “Hey, son,  this is America. If I can do it so can you. All you’ve got to do is work hard and have ethics.” 

“That night Kenny took me to dinner at the Cleveland Athletic Club—the first private club I’d ever been to—and he tipped the waiter $15. He told me, “I’ve got the money, I’ve got the responsibility to share it.” I decided right then and there that I wanted to be like Kenny King. I would work even harder, buy nice things for myself and my family, join a country club, help other people, and never forget the Man Upstairs who made it all possible.  Kenny knew he was swaying me, but he cautioned me, too. “It’s good you’re impressed with all this,” he said,  “but don’t take yourself too seriously, and remember, you don’t have all the answers.” 

“As to business, I think people make it too complicated. When I was eight years old I knew I wanted to be in the restaurant business, and I was now given the chance to accomplish that goal. Positive thinking and a burning desire were the most important things I had going for me. And then Phil made me a fair and honest deal, which was the final ingredient in my plan.” 

“Phil’s offer was everything I had been waiting for. I have said that when the time is right to make a move, a  person just knows it. Deep down the green light clicks on. I knew I was ready. Lorraine and I talked it through,  and we figured we could handle the downside. After all, at that time, we didn’t have all that much to lose.” 

“The stores needed a fresh, new, clean look, and I remembered what an impact painting the mess halls had made in Frankfurt. Sprucing the places up, I figured, would be good for the employees as well as the customers.” 

“Every day, I wanted to know how much money I was making, so I devised a daily report sheet that my office manager had ready for me every morning. I didn’t really know anything about bookkeeping, but these were the numbers I needed to know. On this form were daily sales, labor costs, food costs, and how much cash we had in the bank on a day-by-day basis. The third thing I did, then, was to focus on the key numbers for the business.” 

“That chicken swap at the radio station led to the biggest breakthrough of all: We had to focus these four takeout places in a way that made sense to the customers. It dawned on me that it wasn’t our menu that was drawing people in. It was our chicken! I drove straight to our closest restaurant and grabbed one of the menus. It was too full, too crowded—that was my problem. Within a few weeks, the menu was slimmed down to chicken, salads,  dessert, and beverages. Since nobody had ever heard the name Hobby Ranch House, I changed the name of our restaurants to Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken Take-Home.” 

“The Colonel called me late one night and in a trembling voice told me he had decided to sell out. “What do you think, Dave? Did I do the right thing?” I told him that since the deal was done, he shouldn’t worry, and he and his wife should enjoy themselves on the money he earned. Down deep, I knew that he had been too active a  person to be happily retired. The Colonel never could live with his selling of KFC. As long as I knew him, he cursed himself for what he called the biggest mistake of his life. Five years later John Y. Brown and Jack  Massey turned around and sold KFC for $130 million.” 

“Based on my deal with Phil, my share was 40%. In addition, the $10,000 worth of stock I’d bought turned out to be worth about $1 million on paper. Here I was at age thirty-five with a net worth of $1 million! Knowing I had the money was a great feeling, but more important, I proved to myself that I was able to do about anything I  wanted to do. It was a big security thing. I didn’t have to worry about starving the next week, and the money in the bank took the sting out of what my dad had said about my not being able to hold a job.” 

“The turnaround of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Columbus was the big breakthrough for me. It made everything else possible in my career. When I look back at how it was achieved, I see there were six simple steps. Many business turnarounds are much more complicated, but these six steps are probably a part of even the most complex, big-scale turnarounds you’ll ever hear about.” 

“Figure out the business and focus it. The key in my case was deciding to be in the chicken business in  Columbus and to get rid of the pork chops and other items. Today, they call that carving out a “niche” in the market.” 

“Lorraine deserves plenty of the credit for our getting as far as we did. Today, it’s very common for both husband and wife to work. I was lucky to have Lorraine at home full-time to raise the family and look after personal business. From what I’ve seen, when both parents work, at times one of them may feel more pressure or strain than the other. That means the other partner has to play more of a support role. Based on what Lorraine did for me, here are some ways I think couples can be a real help to each other in demanding times.” 

“My experience with John Brown and the National Diversified stock made me a little less trusting of people,  especially the real smooth types. When big bucks are involved, be careful, no matter who you think you’re dealing with. Let me put it this way. You have to keep four things in mind when you’re dealing in the Major Leagues.” 

“Well, like my adoptive dad predicted, I was out of work, and I was only thirty-seven. The only difference was that I had several million in the bank and a gold mine of an idea in my head. Quitting KFC was the first time in  my adult life that I wasn’t getting a paycheck. When money was needed, I just sold some of my stock so my family and I wouldn’t have to forgo anything. But not getting regular wages made me nervous. When you’ve been poor you always have that fear that you might be poor again, and you lie awake worrying at night. I was scared.” 

“The fish business never really turned me on, but it was something to do. The dream of a hamburger place was still in my head. Hamburgers were always my favorite food, and I just felt that I understood them better than  anybody. Back at the Hobby Ranch House, Dick Clauss—Phil’s son—and I looked at a lot of hamburger places.  We’d see a store or stand or a restaurant that was a little different, and we would go in and take a look at it.  We’d have a hamburger and ask a lot of questions. Phil personally knew a man in Lima, Ohio, Stubby Wilson,  who had a great hamburger operation. It was called the Kewpee Hamburger Stand, and I learned a lot from it.  They made hamburgers fresh off the grill and sold them as fast as they could get them out. Stubby bought beef rounds and ground his own hamburger. He was a great believer in fresh merchandise and fresh products.  Stubby’s ideas on hamburgers stuck in the back of my mind.” 

“After one session, Len suggested we go to the Club dining room for a hamburger, but it was closed. Len jumped on that right away. “See, Dave, it’s what I’ve been telling you. It’s tough to get a meal downtown at the noon hour. We really ought to have a hamburger operation down here. You’re always talking to me about timing.  Well, if you want my opinion, the time is right, right now.” By then, my job at Arthur Treacher’s was getting boring, and I figured that I could get my kids educated and keep food on the table with just one successful hamburger restaurant. Believe me, the idea of a chain of restaurants was not on my mind yet.” 

“To me, nothing would be a more appealing advertisement than showing a little girl, smiling and rosy-cheeked,  enjoying one of my fresh, made-to-order hamburgers, but none of my daughters’ names fit. Then it came to me.  When my daughter, Melinda Lou, was born, neither her brother nor her two sisters could pronounce her name.  They started calling her Wenda, which then turned into Wendy.” 

“Wendy’s was born at a time when nostalgia was sweeping the country. I wanted to offer a warm but simple family atmosphere, with upscale overtones, so the interior of my store featured carpeting, Tiffany lamps,  hanging beads, old-fashioned advertising on the tabletops, and bentwood chairs. The crew was dressed in traditional “whites,” which gave the feel of cleanliness and tradition.” 

“To this day, I believe that most entrepreneurs—especially in the restaurant business—get into trouble by making their menus too broad and offering too many products.”

“I always preach about having a plan, but, ironically, I really didn’t have a plan for Wendy’s when I started out.  What I had was a concept and plenty of operating experience, but there was no five-year plan with a restaurant opening schedule or a financing program. There was nothing like that at all. For the sake of drama, I wish I  could tell you that it was more complicated than that, but it wasn’t.” 

“People were adjusting to a new, more complicated way of life. So many changes were going on—the Vietnam  war, computers, the stress of modern-day life. The young adults were after something that was “totally radical,”  while their parents just wanted the kids to turn down their stereos and stay in school. The parents wanted a  simpler time and traditional values. In a funny way, the old-fashioned decor and the Tiffany lamps provided a  novelty for the young adults and nostalgia for the older generation at the same time.” 

“Bob and Ron became shareholders in the second store. Many company founders go down the drain being greedy. If you want to build your company, you have to deal your key people in. If you take care of everyone who is working hard to help you, you take care of yourself. An organization is able to grow and profit when the key people share in the future, when you tell your people that this is their company, too.” 

“How much will you sacrifice? A lot of people think they’re ready, but they get trapped. They work for a  company and can’t afford to make changes because their standard of living is too high and they won’t give anything up.” 

• “Do you have a clear focus on who your customer is? •Do you have a sharp focus on your product and where it fits among all the other competing products out there in the marketplace? •Do you have a focus on how you will operate your business, and do you know it so well and so clearly that you can explain it to others and motivate those people to do their jobs?” 

“We would be out of business today if we didn’t actually limit the number of customers we worked for. There is no way that we could have the capacity to serve everybody.” 

“Do you have a good handle on the key expenses? A first-time operator just launching a business has to be real careful about the amount of money that he sinks into real estate. You can’t lock it all up in the location and then have no money to operate with. You need to know all your key costs down to the penny.”

“A small businessperson needs a good banker to survive and to expand the company. When you pick a banker,  don’t go after the one with the fanciest computer system or the slickest brochure. Pick a bank with experience in dealing with small businesses and a banker with a good sense of business judgment.” 

“We have told some franchisees, some excellent people, to please leave the business. A franchise isn’t just an investment, it’s a way of life. You can’t play this game from the sidelines. You have to be there to tell your  managers every day, “You’re really doing a good job.” That lifts a person so high, and it’s how you get superior performance. If you can’t tell them that, something’s wrong.” 

“A restaurant is like a little factory, and a menu item is really a product for us. I don’t think it lessens Wendy’s or any other restaurant to compare it to a factory. Porsche sports cars and Rolex watches are made in factories, too!  In a restaurant “factory,” the raw materials come in the back door and the finished product is served at the front counter. That’s as true for the swankiest joint in Manhattan as it is for the Wendy’s in Ashtabula, Ohio.” 

“Brands are just not that important to people. There are many more brands today, and the differences between most of them have become smaller and smaller.