Failure Is an Option- Colonel Harland Sanders

Failure is a word that carry a negative connotation. Nobody wants or likes to fail when doing something. Nevertheless, no one would say that he or she never failed in his or her life. Failure is very important in the life because failure is a key toward success. Without going through the failure, we will never learn and never change. Therefore, the more we fail, the better chance we have at success in the future – it’s called experience. Failure is the mother of success.

Colonel Harland Sanders is a good example for the trait. This is because he was facing many difficulties and setbacks before he became a successful entrepreneur. He (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was an American entrepreneur, best known for the founding the Kentucky Fried Chicken (known as KFC, one of the oldest and biggest fast food restaurant chain in the world.

He was the oldest of three children in his siblings. Colonel only five years old when his father passed away. He forced to take over the household responsibility while his mother went out to work to support the family income. By the age of seven, he already like a master of a score of regional dishes.

When his mother remarried, he escaped and went to live with his uncle because his stepfather was an abusive man. After that, he has done a lot of jobs in his early life, such as steam engine stoker and insurance salesman. But, there was no one job which he could work at for a long time. Finally in the year 1930, Colonel wanted to make a change in his life. He opened a service station in Kentucky while serving his special chicken and other southern dishes.

Firstly, he served his customer in the living quarters, because he did not have a restaurant. After his cooking became famous, he relocated his small business into a nearby motel and restaurant that can seat 142 people. After that, he spent his next nine years to perfect his original recipe with the blend of 11 herbs and spices, known as Original Recipe. In the nine years, he also improved his basic cooking technique to reduce the time for cooking.

However, in the year 1955, at the age of 65, his booming restaurant took a massive hit. Construction of Interstate 75 made his restaurant was out of sight from passing by travelers. This caused a great loss in business. Colonel forced to sell his restaurant to cover his debt. He was almost broke when he was 66 years old, left only with his savings and $105 a month from Social Security.

Even so, Colonel never gave up. He made a decision to sell his recipe to other restaurants. With nothing to lose, he took his spices and pressure cooker, living in his car driving around the country to look for someone want to buy his chicken recipe. He traveled across the country by car from a restaurant to another restaurant, showed them how to cook the chicken. Therefore, he was rejected on many excuses, laughed at about his attire of starched white and white pants. However, he never knocked down. He took over a thousand “No’s” for two years. Finally, he found someone who said “Yes” to him. His offer was to license the recipe and receive only 5 cents per chicken in return. From this, he succeeded in growing his “chicken” empire. Nowadays, there are more than 18,000 KFC outlets in 115 countries around the world.

From the story of Colonel Harland Sanders had shown a very good role model for the trait failure is an option. Success is not necessarily a positive, failure is not necessarily a negative. What a key to being a success entrepreneur is to address failure, learn from it, and continue to move on.