Most people enjoying their meal at one of Chick-fil-A’s 2,600 locations don’t know this, but the restaurant chain’s chairman Dan Cathy was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame because of his athletic success in high school and college. Nor do they know that Cathy numbers two particular wrestling matches among the lowest and highest points of his life. “It’s something I don’t talk about often,” he shared. “But it’s incredibly clear in my mind. The most disappointing experience in my life and the most joyous happened on a wrestling mat.”
As you can imagine, the disappointing match was a loss to the lowest seeded wrestler in his state’s Regional Championships (Cathy was the #1 seed); and the joyful moment came a year later when he won the State Final by beating the previous year’s champion in his 119-pound weight class. The victory gave Cathy a treasured memory for life, but the discipline of wrestling furnished a lifelong model for conducting himself as the leader of one of the nation’s largest family-owned businesses.
“I learned what it meant to leave everything on that mat. There’s an exhilaration and sheer joy that comes from complete exhaustion and knowing you did your very best. It’s an incredible experience.”
As a business leader, Cathy expends the same amount of energy keeping the family business in tip-top shape. At Chick-fil-A there is no delayed maintenance and no potholes in the parking lots, says Cathy. The restaurants have up-to-date equipment and technology business systems that enable people to fly through the drive-through at “astounding” rates. “If you are in that competitive set, that’s just what you do,” Cathy noted. “I think in life when we pursue our passions; we do the kinds of things that we have to do in order to be world-class.”
Cathy is proudest of his service ethic, which has carried him for 40 years at the helm of the family business where he still welcomes guests with a firm handshake and the greeting, “Hi, I”m Dan. I work in customer service.” As delicious as Chick-fil-A food is, that’s not people’s greatest need, avers Cathy. “Their greatest need is being encouraged. Chick-fil-A’s purpose is that customers leave better and more encouraged than when they came in.”
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