Jon Chase/AP
There’s nothing wrong with winding down your working career to enjoy a good book (or dozens of good books) or tend to your prize-winning garden. But check out these seven veteran individuals who weren’t yet done making waves once they retired. In fact, they were barely getting started!
These seven amazing and accomplished individuals prove that anything is possible with the right attitude, passion, and belief in oneself. From famous novels to new successes in the business world, these are some folks to model your (eventual) retirement off of.
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Colonel Sanders
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The man famously known as Colonel Sanders made fried chicken “finger licking good” and was over 60 years of age when he did it! From an inauspicious start selling chicken at a gas station in Kentucky, the impeccably dressed Harland David Sanders underwent several financial setbacks before parlaying his love of Southern-styled food into the mega-successful food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken – or as it’s now known, KFC.
Peter Roget
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UK-born Peter Roget was 73 when he created the thesaurus, something many writers scribes today can’t do without. Roget was a physician, natural theologian and lexicographer with an obsession for list-making as a stress coping mechanism; he was able to direct this energy into the publication of his famous collection of related words, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (Roget's Thesaurus).
Julia Child
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Julia Child — she of the famous TV show and cookbooks — worked in the fields of media and advertising before embarking on a path to becoming a celebrity chef at the age of 50. By adapting French cooking for a North American audience, Child’s passion for food and culinary arts inspired a whole new generation of cooks.
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Frank McCourt
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It was after retiring as a former New York City schoolteacher when Frank McCourt took his life in a new and fulfilling direction. In publishing his bestselling novel Angela’s Ashes in 1996, McCourt ended up selling more than five million copies and won numerous awards, proving that it’s never too late to do what you love.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
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The former schoolteacher and author of the beloved Little House on the Prairie book series was 65 years old when the first novel saw print. The popular children’s book series — and classic television show — continues to delight youth to this day.
Fauja Singh
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Known as the oldest marathon runner in the world, Fauja Singh took up the physical activity at the ripe age of 89 and competed in numerous races up until the age of 104. Believing the activity kept his body and mind active, Singh has been known to walk, jog and run for a minimum of four hours a day.
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Jean-Guy Sauriol
Toronto Sun
Toronto-based Jean-Guy Sauriol became the oldest Canadian to complete a voyage across the Atlantic at the age of 60. Proving that big accomplishments can be done at any age, he is only the third Canuck to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo from the Canary Islands to Barbados — and the former actuary managed the feat in 74 days and three hours.
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