KFC – Kentucky’s Fried Chicken.
What Comes to your mind first if you think of this above Acronym?
Not only for you but for everyone who knows about it, the first thing that comes to their mind is the juicy, tasty fried chicken. And the Next thing is the Image of that Grandpa with the white Goatee beard. Am I right? Of course I am right.
There is a very inspiring motivational story behind this Goatee bearded grandpa and the fried chicken, which tells us that Age is just a number. Let me tell you why so.
KFC is a million dollar fast food franchise which was started by Harland David Sanders. He was 65 years old when he started KFC. His success did not come just like that so easily. He had struggled throughout his life and jumped above many hurdles to achieve where KFC is now. It was not a very easy travel. He had to go through a lot of ups and downs before becoming the so called owner of the million dollar franchise.
He was not part of any military camp but he was given the title Colonel for his works towards the food industry. It was because of his perseverance, hard work, self confidence and never give up attitude. He was so popularly called as Colonel Sanders. He worked on this famous KFC recipe when he was 12 years old and he started the business only when he was 65 years old.
His Life before reaching that age of 65, was not that easy. Life was very tough on him. He failed in whatever way he can in his life. He was experimenting himself in various things through the path of his life. To know more about success behind KFC, we have to get to know the inside stories of how Sanders failed in many others things in his life. It was not that easy. No one spoon fed him or gave him a boon just like that. It was a tough path.
In 1890, in the province of Indiana located in North America, Sanders got birth into a poor family as the elder son. He had a younger Brother and a younger Sister. His family was so poor that both his father and mother had to work to help their family have sufficient money for paying all the bills including food. Since both his parents were out working for the family, he was the one who was left responsible for taking care of his brother and sister. He was the one who has to take care of them, stop them from doing mischiefs, make food for them etc .
He hated cooking in the beginning. But as time passed by, he started developing a passion towards it. He also started learning the techniques and various skills of cooking. He tried out new recipes by himself as days passed by. He also modified his mom’s recipes by adding new ingredients to it. He even had neighbourhood fans who would come to his home to watch him cooking and also to taste it. He developed a dream in himself for starting a new restaurant and also for showing out his recipes to the world. But the destiny had different idea for quite some time. After his father passed away, his mom married another person very soon. That person had hatred for Sanders and soon things started turning out bad.
Due to the quarreling between the son and his stepdad. His mom sent him to work in a Farm in Kentucky for a monthly wage of 4 dollars. When he was working in that farm, his family would visit him only once in a week. Even though he had a family, in his earlier days he lived like an orphan all the time with no one around him. But he had never let his dream get burn into ashes. He did hold on to it, like it was his most important thing in his life. He decided to save all the money he earned from the farm to start the restaurant he wanted to. He worked hard towards it. It was the only thing that was running in his mind all the time.
Since nothing started working out between him and his Step Dad, he moved out from his family and decided to live with his uncle at the age of 12. When he turned 15, he joined in the Army camp. But within 4 months, he realized he was not so very interested in that and left that soon. He was stringent all through his childhood. His only dream was to save all the money he needed to start the restaurant he wanted to. Although, he worked so hard and been as stringent as possible, and saved money slowly, he could not continue in any job for more than 6 months due to his rough short tempered character and never bend down attitude.
He worked in many jobs in and around Kentucky during his earlier days. He worked as a helper in farm, he worked as a Lorry driver, he worked as a railway labour too. While doing these works, he also studied hard and graduated himself in Law department and promoted himself as a Lawyer. But there too he did not last long. He lost his job because of fighting on court with a client.
His Life started turning even more miserable. So he had no other choice but to return to his Mother’s home again. While staying there, he worked as an Insurance agent. He also worked as a supervisor in a Boat Cargo company for some time. But nothing gave him satisfaction or the benefit he wanted. So he had to return to Kentucky again, this time looking for some new future. Although his Career life was a mess, he had some good things happening in his personal life. He fell in love with a girl called Josephine King and married her at the age of Eighteen. He also became a father when he turned Nineteen. But still his career was rocked around like a boat caught in a storm. Meanwhile, he also had fight with his Wife and she took her kid and went away from him to her mother’s home. So, Life became more and more miserable as time passed.
He even tried kidnapping his kid from his wife. But got caught by the police and it became a shame. Then somehow he managed to convince his wife to come and stay with him along with his kid. At the age of 25, he tried working as a salesman in Michelin tyres for some days. And his life started moving forward a bit from that time. He joined the Standard of Kentucky company as the Fuel department Managing director. But again his career got caught in a Storm. The Company where he was working as a Managing director got sealed off by the American government because of the economic crisis that existed in that time.
He was around 60 years of age at that time. Although his Career failed again, he never gave up. Actually this became the turning point of his life. He was at home for a long time after the shut down of the company. During this time, he got some old age pension from the government. Along with this money and also with the money he got as loan from some other sources. he started his first restaurant at the age of 65. His life from 15 to 65 was completely a failure. He started this restaurant at 65 only in a hope to change that failure tag from his life. He wanted to succeed at least once in his life. Now all he was left with, was only this restaurant to do well. The restaurant started picking up well once he established it. But soon he was again struck by an hurdle. For Highway extension purpose, his restaurant was sealed again. Now he had a lot of loan too in his account.
He got stressed to the highest point, got heart broken and decided to kill himself. Yes, He decided to attempt suicide at the age of 65. But just before the moments of committing suicide, he thought about what has gone wrong in his life. He analyzed all the things that went wrong in his life. The only thing that bought him till here is his Never give up attitude. At the verge of committing suicide, he realized that and decided to give himself one more shot at his life.
He decided to sell his childhood Chicken recipe which his neighbourhood was fan of, to the famous restaurateurs in Kentucky. With 2 cookers, a bucket of flour and his secret ingredient, he roamed around Kentucky trying to sell his Fried Chicken recipe to many restaurant owners. He said them that he has a Fried Chicken recipe which will be so tasty and has a great potential to attract customers. He will sell that to them and in return he needs money as an exchange. But more than 1000 restaurant owners rejected his recipe.
At last one of the owner agreed to buy his recipe. And thus the KFC started as collaboration. It was named after the city, Kentucky. Thus Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not at this point, but after sometime. People started speaking about him all around Kentucky. He became popular very soon. He became that much popular that he was awarded the title “Colonel”. But then a fire accident at the restaurant had caused hindrance again. But he crossed that hurdle too by setting up a new restaurant which can accommodate nearly 150 people. He also notched up his Fried chicken recipe a level higher as time passed by. Because of the Second world war, he was pushed into shutting down his restaurant again. He again recovered from that after Second world war ended. He made his second wife, Cladica Laddington price as the owner of this restaurant in North Carolina and he decided to go on a trip all around America for extending his business throughout.
He also took part in elections as a local candidate too, during the time of Roosevelt. He then joined hands with Pete Harman, one of the big personalities among restaurateurs of his time. Harman fell in love with his recipe and he wanted to show it to the world. He also promised to keep the recipe, a secret. It was Harman who gave the name, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Also he was the one who added the tag line, “It’s finger lickin’ good!”. Thus KFC started establishing itself all around the world in many famous cities. Sanders travelled all around the world inspecting the quality of the Fried Chicken in many of the established franchises.
As Days passed by, He could not manage all the franchises around the world, so he sold the onus to a Organization owned by John ‘o’ Brown. Thus he earned a lot from that too. But with one condition, that his photo (Grandpa with Goatee) will always be there in all the shops that is being newly established or extended. It was established in South America, European countries and slowly it reached Asia and many other major Continents and its countries.
After that KFC had faced lots of Ups and Downs, there were a lot of issues that came by. But nothing stopped it from expanding. It expanded on and on. Attracting advertisements started coming out which pulled more and more customers into the doors of KFC. Now if you speak about Fried Chicken, the first word that can come from anyone’s mouth is KFC. It is that popular. After reaching such a height, Colonel Sanders passed away at the age of 90 in 1980 due to cancer. At the time of his death, there were more than 6000 KFC centers established across the world which were profiting more number of crores.
So Colonel Harland David Sanders, he started with nothing but ended up with everything in his life. It is all only because of his never give up attitude. From age 15 to 65 he was an absolute zero, but after 65 he had hit an absolute jackpot. He failed a lot number of times. But he never gave up his dream or the self confidence at any point. Just once he slipped in his life and it went till thinking of attempting suicide but even then at that point too he believed in himself and came above that hurdle like always.
So what we can understand from this is , there is no age limit for success. We can succeed at any age. You can get a break through at any stage of your life. So remember the most important things in your life that are needed are Never give attitude, perseverance, hard work and Self confidence. Without that you could not achieve anything, also you can’t even keep a single step further in your Life. So, Believe in Yourself, Never Give Up, Work Hard, Be Happy, Make Others Happy, Understand yourself, Realize your Skills and potential, Remember Success can come at any age, Believe me and don’t forget to Spread Love.
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