All entrepreneurs are short on time, so there’s a tendency to focus on activities that generate an immediate ROI. But when it comes to networking, that single-minded focus can be a mistake, says venture capitalist Anthony Tjan, whom I profile in my new book Stand Out.
Through extensive interviews and surveys, Tjan and his colleagues discovered that the best leaders fell into four categories: Hearts, Smarts, Guts and Luck , the name of a book they wrote in 2012 exploring what makes entrepreneurs successful. The first three make perfect sense; of course those would be useful traits for leaders. But luck was more surprising.
It turns out that’s not just a catchall to describe some inexplicable success. Instead, the "lucky" entrepreneurs had a very distinctive outlook on life. Luck is the post-facto term we apply when we realize that a certain set of moves has been beneficial. But in the moment, luck actually springs from a combination of curiosity and humility.
