I Took the Only Path To See You

CHAPTER 7Overcoming Failure

If you've ever eaten at a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), you've probably seen the smiling face of their founder, Colonel Sanders. Despite starting and running one of the earliest successful restaurant franchises in America, Colonel Sanders was a failure for most of his life. He once ran a ferry that was put out of business when a nearby bridge was built nearby.

Then Colonel Sanders ran a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky, that barely turned a profit. To help pay the bills, Colonel Sanders started cooking and selling fried chicken meals, which provided him with his first taste of success that lasted nearly a decade. Eventually, he dumped the gas station and focused solely on running his restaurant.

Unfortunately, a major interstate highway was built that bypassed his restaurant by several miles. That meant all the road traffic he relied on to bring customers to his restaurant would switch to the interstate highway and never see his restaurant at all. After traffic to his restaurant dwindled, Colonel Sanders had to sell his restaurant at a loss.

With no money other than his meager savings and a $105 monthly Social Security check, Colonel Sanders had every reason to doubt himself. His whole life had been one failure after another, and now as a retired man, his prospects for finding a new job was close to nothing. The only true asset he owned was his chicken recipe that people loved, so Colonel Sanders started driving across the country, looking for restaurants ...