This is the story about the boy from Henryville, Indiana. In
1895 when he was six years old his father passed away. His mother had to start
working in a tomato Cannery leaving him to cook and care for his siblings. Life
hit him hard at a very young age and because of the difficult situation he
faced he had to work in farm at the age of 10. When he was in sixth
grade, he dropped out of high school and left his home. He started working as a
painter of horse carriages. When he was 16 he faked his age to enlist in the US
Army. After being honorably discharged a year later he started working as a
railway laborer and studied law at the nearby University until he ruined his
legal career by getting into a fight. He was forced to move back to stay with his
mom and get a job which selling life insurance.
After some time he got
fired for not following orders. Some years later he established a boat
company and it was an instant success. Later
on he tried cashing in on his boat business to create a chemical Lamp Manufacturing
Company only to find out that another company was already selling electric
lamps much better than his company's lamps. All this hardship in life, but this
guy wouldn't give up. He moved to work as a Salesman for Tire Company. But again
he lost his job when the company closed its manufacturing plant. By the age of
40 he met the general manager of an company. He asked him to run a service
station for him, but the station had to close down as a result of the great depression of the company. The Shell Oil Company offered him a service station rent free in
return for paying the company a percentage of sales.
He started operating the service station and also began to
serve chicken dishes and other simple meals for people who are stopping by its
station. His pan-fried chicken soon became a favorite with the people of the
area and made him famous in the region. Few years later he took out the station
and started a proper restaurant. After fairly succeeding at this Venture he
started to advertise his food and to his shock an argument erupted out of the
blue with a local competitor and resulted in a fatal shootout with one of his
employees dying.
Four years later he bought a motel next to his chicken
restaurant hoping for better business, but it caught fire and burned down to
the ground together with his restaurant. Yet this ambitious man, built and
ran a new motel with a hundred and forty seat until World War II
force him to close it down again. When War had ended he tried selling his
resides to other restaurants. His recepie was rejected 1009 times when
finally in 1952 he sold his secret recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken for the first
time to the operator of one of the city's largest restaurants it quickly became
a hit and as a result several other restaurant owners franchise the concept and
paid in four cents per chicken.
However, Good Times didn't last very long his own restaurant
was crippled when an interested highway would use customer traffic, he sold it
and was left only with his savings of hundred and five dollars a month from
Social Security. So finally he pursued his dream to franchises chicken concept
Nationwide and traveled the U.S. looking for suitable restaurants. He opened a
new restaurant and a company headquarters in 1959. He often slept in the back
of his car. He visited restaurants offer to cook his chicken and if the owners
liked it, then he negotiated a franchise right in. In 1965 at the age of 75 he
was just getting started after years of rejection, failures. Misfortunes, Colonel
Sanders franchise approach became highly successful. KFC was one of the first
fast food chains to expand globally opening outlets in Canada, UK, Mexico and
Jamaica by the mid-1960s. The Colonel remained the company's symbol after
selling it. He traveled over 400,000 kilometers a year visiting KFC restaurants
delighting customers around the world. At the age of 90 Colonel Sanders passed
away, at that time there were around 6,000 KFC locations in 48 different
countries. In 2018 there were 202,621 KFC restaurants worldwide.
If you are overwhelmed by rejection or discouraged by
setbacks remember the story of Colonel Sanders a 6th grade dropout, fired from
multiple jobs ruined his legal career set back by the great depression, fired
and World War II and yet he became the world's most famous cook after reaching
retirement age.
Colonel Sanders the creator of one of the largest fast-food
chains in the world was many things but above all it was a great success story. With his story,We can learn that despite of thousands of rejections and
misfortunes how dedication along with hard work to create success regardless of
age.
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