Just ran into Jim Collins, author of best-selling business tomes, “Built to Last,” “Good to Great,” and “How the Mighty Have Fallen.”
Collins and I were doing separate TV spots at the local Fox News studio in Denver, so our meeting was quite by chance.
I can’t tell you how many times someone has asked me, ‘have you read ‘Good to Great?’” Collins’ books about what makes comapanies succcessful have been a force of nature.
He is probably the famous guy in Denver besides John Elway and John Scherer, who does the Video Professor commercials on TV. So, being the celebrity hound that I am, I felt fortunate to able to ask for his thought for the day.
“Luck favors the persistent,” he said.
I know that sounds simple. Yet it is also profound … and quite overlooked.
See, a lot of what happens in business, is just luck. Successful entreprenuers like to think they are smart, but in reality, there is all kinds of luck flying around in the universe and they have just happed to catch the good part of it.
The real art of business is trying to stay in the game long enough for this to happen, Collins explained. It’s no different than the game of Monopoly. If you keep moving around the squares, you may eventually find a turn of fortune and overtake your opponents.
“Don’t get knocked off the board,” Collins said.
It may not feel like “success” but sometimes, there’s a lot to be said about still being in business.
