Age is NO obstacle!

Applications for my 7 Millionaires … In Training! ‘grand experiment’ are now closed. I will be announcing the Final 30 Applicants this Thursday at 8pm CST on my Live Chat Show … if you want to follow along, I will also be announcing the next Millionaire Challenge! This will help me decide the Final 15 … now for today’s post:

It seems that blogging and personal finance is a ‘young man’s game’ …

… not so!

At least, not according to Lee, who was yesterday’s Featured Applicant for my new 7 Millionaires … In Training! ‘experiment’.

You can read Lee’s story on the 7m7y site, but I wanted to share the following with you:

Lee is a ‘tad’ older than me 🙂 and is an e-mailer, emoticon’er, and … a blogger. Go Lee!

Whether Lee joins our program from the front-lines or the side-lines, he will succeed because age is NO impediment.

Here are two related stories:

1. There’s an old ‘urban myth’ that says that a retired ‘colonel’ with no money and no prospects at the age of 70 left for a journey across the USA, living out of his car! All he had was an old family recipe for chicken that he wanted to ‘licence’ to restaurants. 1,000 restaurants and 2 years later, all he had was a trunk-full of “no, thanks!”.

Then restaurant number 1,001 said “yes!” … and, that’s how Colonel Sanders came to launch Kentucky Fried Chicken (now, KFC) …  or so the story goes!

His actual story is a little less ‘dramatic’, but I really feel epitomises the path that people like Lee need to (and, can) take:  ‘The Colonel’ actually started at the age of 40, cooking chicken dishes for people who stopped at his little gas-station in Kentucky. 

At the time (he wasn’t a ‘Colonel’ yet) he did not have a restaurant, so he served customers in his apartment at the gas station!

Eventually, his local popularity grew, and Sanders moved to a motel/restaurant that seated 142 people where he just worked as the cook. Over the next nine years, he perfected his method of cooking chicken. Furthermore, he pioneered the use of a pressure-fryer that allowed the chicken to be cooked much faster than by pan-frying.

He was given the honorary title “Kentucky Colonel” in 1935 by the Kentucky State Governor. Ever the ‘salesman’, Sanders started to call himself “Colonel”, even dressing in the stereotypical “Southern gentleman” outfit that we are now used to seeing; he was the consumate marketer!

After the construction of a major highway bypassing his town reduced the restaurant’s business, Sanders had to leave so he took to franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, starting at age 65, using $105.00 from his first Social Security check to fund visits to potential franchisees.

To me, that’s the real story: a 65 year-old fry-cook funding a franchise from Social Security!

2. The second story is a little more personal … highlighting the moment when I can remember being most proud of my own father.

It was my 30th Birthday and my father was at my Surprise Party (I am so thick, I didn’t notice all the cars on the street, the late arrivals hiding behind the trees, or even the balloons when I walked in … boy, was I surprised!) happy as a Dad can be.

The next day he told me that it was on the day of my party that he had been fired from his job – what made it worse was that he had been ‘stabbed in the back’: it was a finance company that he helped start for a ‘friend’, who (once my father had done all the hard work to get the company up and running with a solid book of business) reneg’ed on their deal to pay my father a 33% profit share.

Just two weeks later, at the age of 60, my father had found an ‘angel’ for seed funding and a bank for the major funding and was off and running … a feat that I was (fortunately) able to repeat just a few, short years later (and, unfortunately that I HAD to repeat … but, that’s another story).

Lee, age is NEVER an obstacle …

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17 thoughts on “Age is NO obstacle!

  1. Thanks for the kind and encouraging words. The author Francine Rivers wrote a book about “sons of encouragement” One of her subjects was the biblical character Aaron. He was the older brother of Moses. We know far more about Moses than we do Aaron. But for an old guy like, that book really turned me on. I was more encouraged and motivated after reading that then at any other time in my life.
    I determined while reading that regardless of the by-pass surgery I had just gone through and regardless of my age, my life was just beginning and I had a future that was going to be unbelieveable. With my personal commitement to God and with some help my friends (many like you are “new” friends) I was going places I have never been before and loving the journey.
    I can’t wait to send cards to my friends saying “wish you were here”.

    Lee

  2. @ Lee – Aaron is my ‘other middle name’ and I’m very proud to have it! Aaron was the brother who spoke for Moses (because Moses had a speech impediment after putting alump of hot coal in his mouth rather than a piece of gold … or so the story goes).

  3. I do agree that some of the ways people enrich themselves by almost falling into things but others have to really work hard and sometimes never see that light at the end of the tunnel. It always helps to have that foot in when going into a business. There seems to always be obstacles, family,money and faith. I have been in business for a corporation and the temptation is very high to go into my own expertise.

  4. Hey Lee, don’t forget, you also have the blessing of Abraham on your life, and so does anyone else who chooses to accept it.

  5. Lee, really looking forward to having you around these parts! I can only imagine the vast knowledge you have to impart to us young’uns. I am not religious but I have alot of respect for those who are chaplains to our nations heroes. I hope that we are able to help you, although it will never be enough to thank you for what you’ve done to help our nation’s finest.

  6. I like the kfc story, I had never heard that before. Slightly inspiring, I don’t think I would have the guts to go up to 1,000 restaurants I guess thats why I am not a multimillionaire, yet!

  7. “little bit inspired” but I don’t think I can do things like that… Cheers.

  8. Believe it or not, my very first day in my very first econ class was a video on the life of the Colonel. He is an amazing example of what can be done with enough effort and determination.

  9. @ Tap Water – Amazing! This is your very first day in ‘econ’ … 😛 I hope I was right about the ‘Colonel’, at least?

  10. Pingback: Age is NO obstacle! On the internet or to becoming wealthy « Being Grown and Sexy

  11. I started my first of 7 or 8 business over 44 years ago. In those days it was easy. Then came the day the European Union started meddling and everyone has to have a paper qualification to do almost anything.

    About 15 years ago my businesses had become so stressful I hit burnout big time. It took 4 years to recover during which time I lost all my companies. 11 years later I’m still doing all I can to start again. What I did not know is that the long term effects of stress burnout do terrible things to self confidence and apparently plausability, imagination and thinking strategies.

    At 64 I’m about tostart a new business project, I cannot recall how many have failed since burnout. What I do know is that what did not work was not really me, more the case of what others thought was good for me. Iility followed others advice because I had lost trust in my own ab

    What I believe I am starting now touches something deep inside my own intuitive awareness, reality and authenticity. I have no business angel and no bank loan, just me hugely under financed and my own resources. It is back to those scary days of empty pockets, imagination, creativity, no expectations beyond staying focused, keeping my moral in good shape, getting through each day and stacking one little goal on top of the previous one and the hope that this time it works better than the umpteen previous times since I lost.

    No age is no obstacle all it takes is imagination, will power, determination, being authentic and just keep on going.

  12. @ Robert – An honest story from deep in the trenches; I have to admit that after 15 years of struggle … I was getting close to burnout … it was one of the reasons that I was keen to sell out of most of my businesses. The other was they offered so much damn money! 😉

    For most people there is mystery in starting a business; but once you’ve been there a few times (I’ve only done it 5 or 6 times … you, squillions!), the mystery disappears. Good Luck!

  13. Robert, I was absolutely touched by your story! Best of luck to you. Did you apply to be one of AJC’s 7 millionaires?

  14. Pingback: Featured Finalist - Lee «

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