“Tyler Perry said something to me I’ll never forget, because I battle this all the time, I always try to bring everybody with me,” Hayes tells Fortune. “‘Sometimes you’ve got to leave them in the sand. Sometimes you’ve got to go in the water, row the boat, leave them in the sand, and offer to come back and get on the boat’ … Sometimes people aren’t going to understand the mission.”
The millennial CEO is determined to bring the chain to even bigger heights, and Perry’s words of wisdom have stuck with him on that journey. The 56-year-old filmmaker and actor has learned a thing or two about trials and tribulations of success throughout his 20-year entertainment career. Perry has directed dozens of classics from Madea’s Family Reunion to Meet the Browns—and beyond receiving his industry wisdom, Hayes walked away confident in his pursuit of Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks as a go-to food stop.
“I’m on a crazy mission right now, I’m on a mission where this is all I’m doing every day,” Hayes continues. “I am focused on this one thing that I want to see happen, and it’s hard for a lot of humans to grasp it. So right now, I’m leaving a lot of people in the sand.”
“It’s literally a quote that’s in every book I ever have. It’s very simple,” Eschenbach said. “There is nothing more dangerous than yesterday’s success.
