Fact for you: The average entrepreneur starts and fails with 3.8 businesses before getting a successful

Here’s a fact for you: the average entrepreneur starts and fails with 3.8 businesses before getting a successful one off the ground. You might think this repeated failure is a sign of weakness, but it’s not. Failure is an essential part of success The story of Sergio Zyman is a case in point. In the 1980s, he was a high-flying marketing executive at Coca-Cola. In 1985, the company wanted to introduce a new formula of Coke to the market, and they turned to Zyman for strategy. Boldly, he suggested they introduce it as New Coke, and take the old, much-loved formula off the market. Unfortunately for Zyman, New Coke bombed. People didn’t like the taste and were angry that the old, familiar one had been taken away. As a result, Zyman was canned, so to say, and the company hastily brought the old formula back, under the name Classic Coke. And, amazingly, Classic Coke sold far better than it ever had before. The failure of the New Coke campaign actually led, in the end, to better sales and higher market share. Even Zyman came out okay in the end; Coke rehired him in 1993. For more on how to turn your failures into success — including what failure led to the invention of the gramophone — read Failing Forward, by John C. Maxwell.