How to Create Your Own Luck

A good idea, says former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, is about ten percent implementation and hard work, and is 90 percent luck. While that may be true, there are ways to improve your serendipity quotient, or create your own luck.  

Tony Tjan, the Managing Partner of the venture capital firm Cue Ball Capital and author of HEART, SMARTS, GUTS, and LUCK: What it Takes to be an Entrepreneur and Build a Great Business, a book that includes an assessment of your own attributes to determine which could influence your success at entrepreneurship.

Tjan argues that the most critical factor for building a successful business is learning how to become more self-aware. He defines four key business-builder character traits-Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck- and asks readers to evaluate themselves to gauge where they are and where they need to be. Are you heart-dominant like Alice Waters? Smarts-dominant like Jeff Bezos? Guts-dominant like Richard Branson? Or lucky like Tony Hsieh? Tjan includes an abbreviated form of the Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test (EAT) in chapter 10 of his book. The full test can be found here. 

In the video below, Tjan tells Big Think that luck has a lot to do with optimism. For instance, how long can you maintain a positive opinion about a new idea after someone is introduced it to you? If you entertain the notion that this idea may work for an entire day, Tjan says you are close to a “Zen Buddha state.” 

Watch the video here:

What’s the Significance?

Tjan says another “luck-driven habit” involves how you approach relationships. For one thing, you can go out and “strategically organize the 50 most important relationships to you,” Tjan says. Or you can try the opposite approach and not over-think your relationships. After all, sometimes the wallflowers, are the best people you could possibly talk to.  

“So when you go to your next conference,” Tjan advises, a very simple rule to follow is to stay open-minded. “You’ll find yourself less contrived,” Tjan says, and “you’ll probably find yourself being more authentic, you’ll probably feel that you have greater openness.  And believe it or not you might find yourself with the lucky network friend that can help you in the future.”

Good night and good luck. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

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