“I've only had two rules in life: do all you can, and do it the best you can. It's the only way you ever get that feeling of accomplishment.”
— Harland Sanders
Colonel Sanders said this in interviews during the 1970s, reflecting on his philosophy of persistence. He was rejected over 1,000 times before a restaurant accepted his chicken recipe. He founded KFC at 65.
I was 65, broke, living off a $105 Social Security check. My restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky had just died when the interstate bypassed my town. I loaded my pressure cooker and spice mix into the car and drove from restaurant to restaurant, cooking chicken for owners, asking for a nickel a piece. Over a thousand said no. I slept in my car. Pete Harman in Salt Lake City finally said yes. Five years later KFC had six hundred locations. I was a millionaire at seventy-three.