Colonel Sanders — The Secret That Made KFC
Colonel Sanders — The Secret That Made KFC
Colonel Sanders and His 11 Secret Ingredients
👋 Hello, this is your weekly dose of inspiration and practical guidance. Every Friday you will receive a captivating visual timeline that charts the rise of a successful individual + lessons derived from that.
David Harland Sanders was born on 9 September 1890, in Indiana, US.
At 13, he drops out of school, leaves his home and takes a job painting horse carriages.
He then falsifies his date of birth to join the U.S Army, serves in Cuba, and is honourably discharged after a year.
When he was 17, he started a job as a blacksmith’s helper at Southern Railway, but he was soon fired due to insubordination.
He then started a job as a fireman at Illinois Central Railroad and started studying law by night.
He was admitted to the bar, started practicing and also selling life insurance. He was fired for insubordination from the life insurance company and his legal career ended after a courtroom brawl with his client.
At the age of 30, he establishes a ferry boat company, which he operated successfully. He took the proceeds from that and established a company manufacturing acetylene lamps, which failed due to the introduction of the electric lamp.
When he was 34, by change, he met the general manager of Standard Oil of Kentucky, and started running a service station in Nicholasville. Six years later this was closed due to the Great Depression.
He then ran a service station for Shell Oil Company in Kentucky, where he begins selling chicken dishes to the travellers.
At 45, he became a Kentucky Colonel in recognition of his contributions to the state’s cuisine.
Ever wanting to expand, he buys a motel and a restaurant but these are destroyed by fire.
At 50, he finalised the secret recipe with 11 herbs and spices, which you can see if you zoom in on the timeline.
At 60, he had to shut down his restaurant because a new highway bypassed his location, and he decided to retire.
Unable to settle, he decides to start franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken, eventually selling it for $2 million a decade later. ($20m today)
1 Lesson from Colonel sanders
Quitters Never Achieve Their Goals.
He dropped out of school, was fired multiple times, became and ceased to be a lawyer.
He tasted success with his ferry boat company, yet he lost it all again with the acetylene lamps factory.
He started over, running a service station that eventually closed due to the Great Depression.
He bought a motel and restaurant that were destroyed by fire, but he persevered, he made it work.
However, he faced adversity again as a new highway bypassed his location.
That did not stop him either.
He kept pushing.
Until next Friday,
The Chronicler