A101 Team Americans have always valued hard work. American writer Harry Golden said it best: “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”
Kathleen King, founder of Tate’s Bake Shop, is no stranger to failure, but her determination helped create America’s favorite chocolate chip cookie. How did she get to the top? The work ethic she earned from farm work in her youth.
Here’s what Kathleen King told Business Insider:
She set her sights on the oven at age 11, baking cookies to sell for a bargain at her father’s farm stand — six for $0.59. With a lot of consumer love and little competition, she grew her business enough to spend her high school summers baking ten hours a day, seven days a week, she said.
“When I was [growing up on a farm], I felt like a child slave, but looking back it was really heavenly,” King said, adding that her parents told her she could do or be anything if she worked for it.
“It’s a tremendous amount of hard work, you start working at a really early age,” she said. “In the big picture, it’s wonderful — you develop work ethic, learn to apply common sense, and see how nature is entwined.”
It’s what helped King prepare for a business adventure that involved a lot of grit, she said.
“It’s not easy. You learn when you fall down, you get up,” she said of farm life. “There’s nothing cushy or protective. Which is what made me survive my journey.”
Read more about how Kathleen King’s hard work overcame failure on Business Insider.
