Recipe for Success

Who doesn’t know the iconic look of Colonel Harland Sanders on every bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken? But did you know he wasn’t famous until he well over sixty years of age. The Colonel is a great example of persistence, someone we can all relate to and learn from.

Born in 1890, Colonel Sanders had much to overcome in his life. His father passed away when he was five, so while his mother worked he was required to cook for the family. He dropped out of school in the seventh grade and later left his family because of abuse by his stepfather. He held various jobs before he was forty including: steamboat pilot, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, farmer, and practiced law. During this time he married and had three children, one of whom passed away at a young age.

During the 1930’s in his early forties, Sanders began selling chicken dinners and other meals out of a service station in Kentucky. He was quite successful and during this time he developed his original, secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices. However, by the early 1950’s, a new interstate diverted the traffic from his business subsequently forcing him to sell.

Now in his mid sixties, Sanders took to the road dressed as a Kentucky gentleman in his famous white suit with black western tie and who could forget his white goatee. In his quest to sell his chicken and start franchises, he wound up making over one thousand visits often facing ridicule and rejection. By 1964, despite the naysayers, the Colonel had established over six hundred franchised stores where you could purchase his chicken in the United States and Canada.

Colonel Sanders was also well known for his generosity to charities and orphans. He once said, “There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.” By the time he passed away in 1980 he had become one of the world’s most recognizable faces.

May Colonel Sanders be an inspiration to us all, to never give up despite the odds. It is never too late to aspire to something more; a better craftsman, a better father, a better husband, a better writer, or simply a better person. You never know where your persistance may lead. Perhaps our goal should be, being greatly esteemed by the lives we touch and whatever else happens, well, happens.

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” ~ Booker T. Washington

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