If I have learned nothing else in all my years here, my biggest lesson is you have to constantly reinvent this company. That's how you get to be 103 years old.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
After 39 years of business, I'm still learning. I go through this every year -identifying new strategies that are extremely important.
You've got to keep reinventing. You'll have new competitors. You'll have new customers all around you.
Any company has got to reinvent itself again and again.
My company survives because I've learned to respect the ideas of people younger than me and recognize when my wisdom is obsolete.
I inherited the company from my father after he died very unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1966. He was just 51 years old, and I was 21.
I could never live a nonproductive life and I feel that I have lived a productive life as far as I want to in terms of this company that I have for so many years.
You can always think that we're old and not innovative, but there is no company that can limp on for 139 years without being creative and having the genes to change.
You don't know this when you're young, but over time, you see that great companies are usually built at a special point in time.
Every job you do, you gain more experience. You never stop learning.
At 88 years old - with every intention of living decades longer - I'm still running a company, writing articles, launching new ventures, and fully enjoying life.