Lesson #4: Everything Happens in its Own Time

It did not matter where Kellogg went in his life or what he did, his brother, John Harvey, was eight years older than him and he never let him forget it. As young boys, J.H. would regularly beat on his younger brother, and use him as a foot warmer during many a cold winter night. While J.H. was the loud and flamboyant child, Kellogg was shy, and fell into the shadow of his older brother. He was encouraged to join his father’s broom business, while his brother went off to a prestigious medical school. When Kellogg’s own broom business failed, he was forced to go crawling back to his brother to ask for a job.

The punishment did not stop there for Kellogg. As his brother’s lackey, Kellogg often worked over 120 hours a week doing anything and everything his brother asked of him: packing books, mailing invoices, cleaning rooms, serving patients. “I was always notified when insane patients succeeded in getting away,” he once said, since he was the one who would be responsible for spending the night tracking them down.

For all of his work, Kellogg never received a title or sufficient compensation. His brother, who he was also forced to call “Dr. Kellogg,” reaped the rewards of his hard labour. On occasion, Kellogg was even made to give his brother a shave and shoeshine. “For twenty-two and one-half years, I had absolutely lost all my individuality in you,” Kellogg once told his brother. “I tried to see things through your eyes and do things as you would do them.”

The relationship between the two brothers became especially tense during Kellogg’s meteoric rise to success. J.H. called his brother a “loafer” and accused him of exploiting the Kellogg name, which rightfully belonged to him. Things reached their peak when Kellogg sued his brother for brand infringement. When Kellogg won, J.H. responded by taking his brother to court to stop him from selling bran products he had first made while working at the Sanitarium. Here, too, Kellogg won the case.

The Great Depression hit J.H. hard, as he was forced to relocate his Sanitarium to a smaller location. All the while, Kellogg’s wealth continued to grow thanks to his expanding business. Kellogg never once complained about his lot in life, nor did he ask for special treatment from his brother. When J.H. ordered Kellogg to pay for business expenses out of his own pocket, he obliged. He did whatever his older brother told him to do.

But when Kellogg had the opportunity to go off and work for himself, he seized it. He knew that the best revenge was living well, and so he wanted to earn his own success and on his own terms. He did not let his brother’s criticism slow him down.

It was only in 1943, when J.H. was on his death bed that he decided to reach out to his younger brother and make amends. “I am sure that you were right as regards the food business,” he wrote in a letter. “Your better balanced judgment has doubtless saved you from a vast number of mistakes of the sort I have made and allowed you to achieve magnificent successes for which generations to come will owe you gratitude.”



Lesson #4: Everything Happens in its Own Time

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