If it were not for the ingenuity of W.K. Kellogg, the world today might never know flaked cereal.

A master marketer and inventor, Kellogg revolutionized the breakfast food industry when he decided to start his own company and sell toasted corn flakes back in 1906.

Today, that same company has grown to include almost 26,000 employees and earns over $11.5 billion in revenue.

He dropped out of school and was always considered to be the “dim-witted” child in his family.

So how did this boy so destined for failure rise to become one of America’s most well-known entrepreneurs?

“As a boy, I never learned to play.

I confess at the time I little realized the extent to which the food business might develop in Battle Creek. I was so overloaded with work that I am conscious that very little, if any of it, was performed satisfactorily. I did the work as business manager of the Sanitarium and got no glory and very little money. I was always notified when insane patients succeeded in getting away.

For twenty-two and one-half years, I had absolutely lost all my individuality in you. I tried to see things through your eyes and do things as you would do them.

I never, at any period of my life, aspired to become wealthy, but the fierce competition perhaps developed a fighting spirit, and in the effort to secure our share, the business has succeeded. It is my hope that the property that kind Providence has brought me may be helpful to many others, and that I may be found a faithful steward.

Dollars have never been known to produce character, and character will never be produced by money.

I sort of feel it in my bones that we are preparing a campaign for a food which will eventually prove to be the leading cereal of the United States, if not the world.“

Do you “feel in your bones” that your business will be successful?