This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing.
If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on osa.com. This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company. Mm-hmm.
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Okay. This is Rob Gronkowski from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. For the second season in a row, I partnered with T-Mobile's Friday Night 5G Lights, powering up hometown football across America. This year, T-Mobile invested over $4 million in prizes to help schools take their Friday nights to the next level.
Now it's time to crown our $1 million grand prize winner. A huge congrats to Derricks High School in Derricks, Arkansas, home of the Outlaws and your 2025 T-Mobile Friday Night 5G Lights Champion. They scored a home field upgrade, Gronk Fitness Weight Room, a 2026 tailgate party, and an all-expense paid trip to the SEC Championship game. to every school that competed, posted and rallied your communities. Thank you.
And a big thanks to T-Mobile for making it all possible and helping communities shine under the Friday night lights. This season may be over, but the story isn't. Stay tuned for season three in 2026. Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal. The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes.
Don't miss as Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season. This is Unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher, and every athlete shines. Unrivaled Basketball, Season 2, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max. Uh This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.
Colonel Harlan David Sanders was an American businessman known for founding the fast food corporation Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders did something that no other restaurant founder dared to do. He became his company's own mascot and brand ambassador. Here to share the story of KFC and a little about who Colonel Sanders was is Adam Chandler, the author of Drive Through Dreams. Take it away, Adam.
The story of Colonel Sanders and KFC is one of the best stories there is in fast food. There's nothing else like it. This is a guy who You know, he was born into poverty, grew up on a rural farm. He's basically an orphan. He raises his own family while his mother's working after his father dies at a very young age.
And he works every job imaginable for the first six, seven decades of his life. Uh He's selling tires. He's working for the Chamber of Commerce. He's building ferries. He's working on trains.
He's trying to become a lawyer. He does all of these different things. And He finds success in some of them and he fails in other ones and he just keeps trying. And he ends up in a small gas station that he owns in southeastern Kentucky. And basically, his entire focus is trying to beat out the other gas stations for customers on the newly built roads that are happening in southeastern Kentucky, the Dixie Highway.
And he ultimately succeeds by having excellent service and excellent food. And that's the beginning of Fried Chicken. He loves it. He creates an electric pressure cooker, patents it to make fried chicken faster than anyone has ever made fried chicken before. And it is a hit.
He gets written up in national publications. And eventually, he turns this idea into a franchise. He goes around and patents the recipe and sells the idea on handshake deals to small mom and pop shops and diners all around Appalachia and the Midwest. Basically, just saying, here's the recipe for my chicken. I'll send you the seasoning and you give me five cents for every chicken that you cook.
It's the most homespun thing imaginable. It sounds completely insane today, but this is how he built his empire. Yeah. Eventually, he started opening these standalone stores. And Mind you, he was 66 when this happened.
He was old. That was the standard age that you were suspected to possibly pass on at that point. That was the life expectancy, where he was basically at when he decides to turn. KFC into an empire, and he could have just retired. He would have been fine doing it.
But instead, he goes out on the road and he just creates this brand that everyone falls in love with. U and it expands around the world. And he becomes one of the most famous men in the world after living in obscurity for so long because he's got this big personality and he's got this drive and he's got this really strong belief in his product. And, you know, the white planter suit with the tie, that's all something that he came up with as a way to kind of brand himself. He was a Kentucky Colonel, which is an honorary title in Kentucky.
And he uses this to market himself as the colonel. There are thousands of Kentucky colonels. out there. There's only one Colonel Sanders and everybody knows who he is. He gets on television, he's in movies, he becomes this character.
He becomes the second most recognizable figure in the world, according to one poll in the 1970s. And that's not something that happens to a lot of people, but through sheer force of will and a lot of skill, he manages to do this. And that idea is still a cherished part of the brand's motto: doing things the hard way, the way that the colonel did it.
So This story of sort of perseverance and a real belief in self and in your own invention is a huge reason why we know. KFC the world round. What's great about the fast food story, and this is still true to some extent today. is you didn't need a college degree. Or Really great connections to make it in the fast food industry when it was starting out.
Looking at the early stories of the founders. Most of them didn't graduate high school, much less go to college. They were salespeople. They were salesmen driving around the country trying to sort out a way to create a business model that would be sustainable. A lot of them served in the armed forces at some point and kind of learned what the meaning of regimented service and operations are.
And they just worked hard and created a system that was very popular.
So all of these really Big American ideals that we cherish is hard work and that part of The American story really comes to bear in fast food, and it's not just the big, recognizable names, you know, there are also these small entrepreneurs who open franchises. And are able to become wealthy in a way that. you would think you would need connections or advanced degrees to get. And that's just not the story of fast food. There are so many different people, all ages, all backgrounds, all ethnicities, that managed to create something special in that post-war era.
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Madison Derricott. And a special thanks to Adam Chandler, author of Drive-Through Dreams. And by the way, go to alamericanstories.com and you can hear the full story of so many of the other fast food and drive-through restaurants that were formed and founded. by men and women just like Colonel Sanders. And this is the distinct nature of this business.
It didn't take a PhD or a JD or a BS or even a high school degree. He wanted to provide better service for his customers and his gas station. He'd kicked around a long time in his 60s. He finally lives that American dream, but boy does he hustle. And he's driving from town to town selling his recipe and his patent.
And by the way, the number of people who got wealthy owning KFCs and owning these restaurants. That's the other flip side of this American dream. It wasn't just the product he created for himself, but the wealth he spread. And by the way, the yummy chicken. The story of Colonel Sanders.
Here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I'm inviting you to help Our American Stories celebrate this country's 250th birthday coming soon. If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to ouramericanstories.com and click the donate button. Any amount helps.
Go to ouramericanstories.com and give. Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal. The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Beckers, Nefiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season.
This is Unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher, and every athlete. Shines. Unrivaled Basketball, Season 2, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI.
It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's.
Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member F-I-N-R-A-S-IPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing.
If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com. This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company. Okay.
Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first Shining bright, it did it all There. The last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that.
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Guaranteed human. Mm-hmm.
