For someone who spent much of his adult life sharing the benefits of a positive attitude, Wally Amos surprisingly grew up surrounded by negativity.
He spent his early years in relative poverty in the “colored” section of Tallahassee, Fla., during the late 1930s and ’40s. His mother, Ruby, worked as a domestic servant her whole life. Despite that, she had high expectations of her son, and never forgot to remind him when he didn’t measure up. Though Amos suffered frequent criticism and a firm hand, the value of discipline and hard work he learned from his mother helped him later in life.
In his book The Cookie Never Crumbles: Practical Recipes for Everyday Living, Amos explained that his mother never said “I love you,” but he now understands now that she only knew how to show love through her zealous discipline. Later in life, he used his positive attitude to resolve their lingering issues, and their relationship grew to one of love and acceptance before his mother passed away in 1994.
Embracing Positivity
Amos’s love of life and sunny attitude helped him overcome countless obstacles. With his Hawaiian shirts and trademark funky watermelon hats, Amos was always easily identified. The founder of Famous Amos cookies and co-founder of Uncle Wally’s Muffin Company, Amos offered insights on hope, self-worth and positive thinking through his motivational speaking and nine books, including Watermelon Magic: Seeds of Wisdom, Slices of Life; Man with No Name: Turn Lemons into Lemonade; The Road to Success Is Paved with Positive Thinking; and Watermelon Credo: The Book.
“It doesn’t matter how bad things look or what appearances are,” said Amos at 73. “If I can just continue on—one breath at a time— that’s all I have to do. There’s no tomorrow. There’s no future or no past because those are just words. Those aren’t places you can visit. So, if I can just keep on keeping on with enthusiasm and excitement over what I’m doing and a great attitude, I absolutely believe I will succeed. And my life demonstrates that.”
A Taste for Cookies—and Ambition
After his parents divorced in 1948, 12-year-old Amos moved to New York to live with his Aunt Della. She frequently baked him chocolate chip cookies using the recipe Amos later would adapt for his original Famous Amos crispy cookies.
Although he developed an interest in cooking at an early age, Amos dropped out of the Food Trades Vocational High School in New York to join the Air Force. He earned a high-school equivalency diploma before being honorably discharged.
An advocate of literacy and education, Amos shared with SUCCESS that he doesn’t see his lack of schooling as a disadvantage. Instead, he viewed it as a necessary life experience. If he hadn’t dropped out and joined the Air Force, he said he never would have been stationed in beautiful Hawaii, and perhaps he wouldn’t have the pleasure of living there as long as he did.
Turning Adversity into Opportunity
“It is possible to succeed under the worst of circumstances. My experience has told me that. I’m a high school dropout. I’m black. So, obviously, those two things have nothing to do with [preventing] success. Those are not two handicaps. They are just two experiences,” Amos said.
After he left the Air Force, Amos took a part-time job at Saks Fifth Avenue’s supply department. His manager at the time, Ernie Riccio, became one of Amos’s first mentors. In addition to encouraging Amos’s outstanding work, Riccio would discuss finance and business articles with him from The Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Report. “He saw something in me,” Amos said. “He gave me a chance to work, and I did everything I could to honor whatever he saw in me and to be the best employee.”
The hard work paid off. Amos secured a permanent job in the supply department and later earned a managerial position after Riccio was promoted. “Guess who he recommended to take his place? Wally Amos. That was a wonderful thing because there were other people who had been there longer, but he thought I was more qualified,” he said.
Finding Paths Around Obstacles
After six and a half years as a successful agent, Amos hit a roadblock on the corporate ladder. It was the late 1960s, and he was told he could not be promoted to the film or television departments, or even manage the music department, because they didn’t think film executives or other white agents would want to take direction from a Black man. Rather than focus on the problem, Amos focused on a solution. He moved to the West Coast to start a business as a personal manager. But eventually, he got another idea.
Amos planned to use his skills in promoting stars to promote gourmet chocolate chip cookies, going so far as to staple samples of his baked goods to his business plan. His connections in the music industry
Founded in 1975, the company took off almost instantly. In 1987, Amos won the Horatio Alger Award for demonstrating purpose and perseverance. In the 1980s, Famous Amos reported reaching $12 million in annual sales, with 35 stores in the United States and Asia. Despite that apparent success, it was an unstable time for the company, and Amos ultimately lost his company because of his own mismanagement.
“I got ahead of my team. I forgot there was a team. I thought that because I was ‘famous Amos’… I had all the answers, but I was very, very wrong. And that ultimately caused me to lose Famous Amos,” he said.
At one point, Amos lost his home in Hawaii because he fell behind on the mortgage payments. Instead of panicking, Amos called on a friend for help and was able to get his home back. But finding his way back into business was challenging.
Finding Strength in Adversity
“The more you focus on the problem, the more it pulls you down,” he said. “It’s like being in quicksand: If you become too conscious of what’s happening to you, you’ll sink in a second, but if you can remain calm long enough and focus on the answer… you will find support and help that lift you up.”
So Amos was back in his home but still out on his luck. There was a period after he left Famous Amos when he was sued for selling cookies and barred from using his own name to promote products because of a noncompete agreement. So he buried his love for cookies temporarily and focused on the cookie’s distant cousin: the muffin.
Part of Amos’s dedication to hard work is his old-fashioned commitment to making the people who believe in him proud—whether they’ve invested time, wisdom, money or bought a whole lot of chocolate chip cookies. Being passionate about your work is key to a fulfilling life, he said.
Despite his success in the muffin business, Amos never forgot his start in cookies. He opened a cookie shop, Chip & Cookie, based in Hawaii. Other ventures he pursued included The Cookie Kahuna and Aunt Della’s cookies.
Wally Amos’s Mission
Amos took pride in his legacy, which he hoped would be more than just a positive outlook and delicious cookies. He wanted to be remembered for helping to create a more literate society. He launched a campaign with his Read It LOUD! foundation to encourage parents to read aloud to their children for 10 minutes every day.
“The only way we are ever going to get rid of the problem of adult illiteracy is to create kids who can read, generations of children who can read,” said Amos, a father of four.
His commitment to ending illiteracy was a lifelong journey, and a personal one because his own parents had endured numerous limitations in their education and literacy. He said helping others helped him in many other ways, including honing his public speaking abilities while recording videos to help adults learn to read during a stint as spokesman for Literacy Volunteers of America.
“I was doing something for the Literacy Volunteers of America that I thought would help other people, and it wound up helping me more than I could have imagined,” Amos said. “I came across a quote that said: ‘Volunteering is reaching your hand out into the darkness to pull another’s hand back into the light, only to discover that it’s your own.’”
