The Boy Who Never Gave Up

This is the story of a boy from Henryville, Indiana, who was six years old when his father died and his mother was forced to start working in a tomato cannery, leaving him to cook and care for his siblings. Life hit him hard at a young age, and because of the difficult situation he faced, he was forced to work as a farmhand at the age of ten. When he was in sixth grade, he dropped out of high school and left his home. He began working as a painter of horse carriages. When he was 16, he lied about his age to serve in the United States Army and was honorably discharged a year later. He began working as a railway laborer and studying law at a neighboring university until he lost his legal career by getting into a fight and was forced to move back in with his mother and obtain a job selling life insurance. After a while, he was dismissed for failing to obey directions. Years later, he established a ferryboat company, which was an instant success.

Later, he attempted to capitalize on his ferryboat business by establishing a chemical lamp manufacturing company, only to discover that another company was already selling electric lamps that were far superior to his company's lamps. All this adversity in life, but this guy wouldn't give up. He moved to work as a salesman for a tire company, but he lost his job when the company closed its manufacturing plant by the age of 40. He met the general manager of an oil company who asked him to run a service station for him, but the station had to close down again as a result of the great depression that same year.

He began operating the service station and also began to serve chicken dishes and other simple meals for people stopping by the station. His pan-fried chicken quickly became a favorite with the people of the area and made him famous in the region a few years later he took out the station and started a proper restaurant after fairly succeeding at this venture he began to advertise his food and to his surprise, an argument erupted out of nowhere with a local competitor, the building caught fire and burnt down to the ground together with his restaurant yet this ambitious man rebuilt and ran a new motel with a 140 seat restaurant until world war ii forced him to close it down again when war had ended he tried selling his recycles to other restaurants [Music] his wrestling was rejected 1009 times when finally in 1952 he sold his secret dress ip 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 franchised the concept and paid him four cents per chicken.

However, the good times did not last long because his own restaurant was crippled when an interested highway reduced customer traffic; he sold it and was left with only his savings and 105 dollars a month from social security; finally, he pursued his dream of franchising his chicken concept nationwide and traveled the United States looking for suitable restaurants; he opened a new restaurant and a company headquarters in 1959; he frequently slept in the back of his car; he visited restaurants offering to cook his chicken and if the owners liked it then he negotiated a franchise right.

Colonel Sanders' franchise model became immensely successful in 1965, when he was 75 years old, following years of rejection, failure, and misery. KFC was one of the first fast-food companies to go global, with locations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Jamaica. By the mid-1960s, the colonel had become the company's emblem; after selling it, he traveled over 400,000 kilometers per year, visiting KFC outlets and delighting customers worldwide [Music]. Colonel Sanders died at the age of 90. At the time, there were approximately 6,000 KFC stores in 48 different countries. In 2018, there were 22,621 KFC restaurants globally.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by rejection or discouraged by setbacks, remember the story of Colonel Sanders, a sixth-grade dropout fired from multiple jobs, ruined his legal career, set back by the Great Depression, fire, and World War II, yet he became the world's most famous cook after reaching retirement age. Colonel Sanders, the creator of one of the world's largest fast-food chains, was many things, but above all, he was a great success story.