Tips for success in the new year

Here’s a game plan for business success in 2018.

Keep going. Don’t quit in the face of failure. Always keep learning. Stay passionate, and get the most out of every day.

These are some of the habits of highly successful entrepreneurs, as detailed in a recent study that documents their failures as steps on the road to success.

Common themes for most successful entrepreneurs are lots of reading, belief in a healthy lifestyle and embracing failure as a precursor of success, according to the study, published by MBANoGMAT.com, which runs online MBA programs.

Walmart founder Sam Walton failed with several stores when he was starting out. But he learned something each time and eventually came up with a successful model, according to his autobiography, “Made in America.”

Walton, who wrote his story while dying of cancer, tells how he started with a single dime store and turned it into a retailing powerhouse.

John Bogle, one of the creators of the modern mutual fund industry that was able to reach millions of new investors, also had problems. Fired early in his career at Wellington Management during the recession of 1973-74, he quickly bounced back.

Bogle had an idea that was initially derided by Wall Street: index funds sold to the average investor without sales charges and with incredibly small expenses. In 1974, he began the then-small Vanguard Funds with a passively managed fund.

This unique investment product was initially called “unAmerican,” much to Bogle’s “cackling delight,” according to the book “The Man in the Arena” by Knut Rostad.

Bogle, who has made a career as a securities industry gadfly, laughed at the critics as Vanguard became the top fund company in the industry. It happened, in part, because Bogle was passionate.

“It is critical to be passionate about what you do. Having that love will get you through all of the failures and rejection,” said Rick Neil, one of the authors of the study and CEO of RN Public Relations.