COLONEL SANDERS: How to get rich on fast food at 65 and become a symbol of America
Photo: bit.ua
If you ask an ordinary American who is the model of that notorious American dream for him, he will not hesitate to name Harland David Sanders. Who else?
A man from “ours”, from a low-income family, searched for himself for a long time and did not disdain any kind of hard work, received 1006 refusals and honestly got rich, having founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken trademark, spent his millions for the rest of his life, playing golf and traveling on yachts with beautiful girls. And what kind of chicken he cooked – you will lick your fingers!
A MAN OF FIFTY PROFESSIONS
In fact, the story of Harland David Sanders, originally from Henryville, Indiana, can be classified as a little adventurous. Success might never have overtaken him. But Sanders was too stubborn. “All my life I have been guided by only two rules,” he said. “Do the best you can and do it the best you can. This is the only way to achieve what you want. Nobody has invented anything else yet”.
From childhood he was on his own. Having lost his father at the age of 6, little Harland David Sanders had to join in cooking, helping his mother, as well as babysitting his little sister and brother. Unable to establish relations with the inadequate new chosen one of his mother, the boy chose to move in with his uncle, where he impressed his new family with his ability to cook.
He became addicted to making pies and selling them in the local market – so much so that he was the least successful in the class. When Sanders’ student was ordered to be expelled from school, he decided that it was enough to study. It’s time to start your own business.
He had just turned 12 years old, and he already had experience in washing cars, at night he worked as a loader at a furniture factory, and during the day as a messenger. “You have to love what you do. You have to do what you like. And you have to do something worthwhile to really enjoy it. Only then does it all make sense,” Harland David Sanders would later say.
It is worth saying that in his life he will also have to become a tire seller – and understand them brilliantly, work as an insurance and sales agent, spend a little time as a farmer and a lawyer’s assistant, master the basics of car mechanics, work as a conductor and even as a ferry captain. A universal man – this Sanders – it was not for nothing that they began to call him a man of fifty professions.
He often emphasized, “The best tonic and vitamin in the world is hard work”. And he went to his dream, doing everything possible and impossible. For example, at the age of 15, he wanted so badly to get into the army that he forged his birth documents. The service, unfortunately, was not as romantic as he wanted. But Harland David Sanders also mastered the profession of a groom while serving in his military logistics division.
THE GREAT COOKER
“My sister shouldn’t have married a loser like you, Harland David Sanders!” The future millionaire received a letter with such terrible lines from his wife’s brother. He tied the knot for great love, had children, but remained unfulfilled in life. When he was 40 years old, his wife left him.
And Harland David Sanders didn’t give up. He opened his own workshop on the side of Interstate 25 in Kentucky. Travelers heading to the warm state of Florida from the north complained to him that there was nowhere to eat.
And Sanders decides to open a small restaurant in his own workshop. He begins to prepare breakfasts and dinners for travelers and finally gets pleasure from what he loves. From six seats, the restaurant has expanded to a small establishment – the Sanders Court and Café Motel with good food for 142 seats.
The owner personally roasted chicken in his home kitchen and treated the visitors. Its secret was the speed of cooking and special secret seasonings, as well as spices from eleven ingredients. Harland David Sanders was one of the first to appreciate the new pressure cookers and began cooking chicken under pressure in just 15 minutes.
“Neither years of hard work, nor lack of money — nothing could stop me from doing the best I was capable of,” said Sanders.
Things were going very well. The fame of Harland David Sanders’ chicken spread far beyond Kentucky, and the dish began to be called the state’s business card. In 1935, he was promoted to Colonel of Kentucky for Distinguished Service in the public life of the state from the hands of the Governor himself. So, not even being awarded the rank of a junior officer in the army, Sanders immediately became a colonel.
“If you are both dreamers and doers, then support your dreams. Always, Sanders said. – You must have ambition, desire and willingness to work, conscientiousness. This is the surest secret of success”.
When Harland David Sanders turned 62, the government opened a new highway, bypassing his establishment. The colonel suddenly loses clients and profits, gets into loans and sells his own house for debts. He travels across America hoping to sell his secret chicken recipe to some restaurateur. But it fails.
“I am sure that the dream is our sail. We just have to pick it up and swim towards our goal,” he decided. Colonel Sanders visited 1,006 restaurants and spoke with restaurant owners and top chefs. He spent over a year, but the recipe for his incomparable chicken was not interesting to anyone.
But then life brought him to the restaurateur Pete Herman. Together they opened a new establishment – Kentucky Fried Chicken, the first restaurant of the famous KFC chain. The Colonel’s smiling face – the logo of the network – has become recognizable in many countries.
“It doesn’t make sense to be the richest person in the cemetery. You cannot govern from there,” he says, having become rich at 65. The colonel will sell his restaurant for $ 2 million and become a real aristocrat. In Harland society, David Sanders will appear exclusively in white shirts and a ribbon tie as in the logo, and with a perfectly styled beard and mustache. He will live in happiness and harmony with himself until the age of 90.
