Good luck is preparation plus opportunity

Most successful entrepreneurs I know readily acknowledge that their pathway to success was littered with good luck. But they are usually quick to remind us that "good luck happens when preparation meets opportunity" — and opportunity usually comes from someone you know.

John Morgridge is perhaps the best example of "preparation meeting opportunity" that I know. I visited with John shortly after he was selected by a venture capital firm to serve as president and CEO of a small startup company with $5 million in annual revenues. John had an MBA from Stanford and excellent management experience in a number of high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, but he never dreamed that he would take this startup and build a global company that today has annual sales of $30 billion and a market cap of $170 billion.

Under John's direction, Cisco Systems Inc. has become a worldwide leader in networking products and has been recognized as one of the best managed and most admired global companies by several business publications. You could say that John was lucky to stumble into such an opportunity. But critical to his good fortune was his thorough preparation, followed by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity provided by his professional associates.

It is clear that preparation is our personal responsibility. But what about opportunity? We've all heard that "it's who you know, not what you know, that determines your success." Should the "who you know" opportunity be left to chance, or is there something we can do to increase the likelihood of our success?

John Morgridge grew up and attended high school in Milwaukee. He didn't have any special birthright relationships so, like most of us, it became his personal responsibility to develop relationships to satisfy the "who you know" factor in the formula that assures opportunity. He became an active participant in many different community- and job-related organizations that opened the door of opportunity for him.

In today's business world, strong personal relationships are more critical than ever. New businesses tend to be built upon innovation rather than upon intellectual property. Innovation is accelerated when bright people with similar interests interact with each other. Even new product patents are typically the result of a collective effort from many different people, with each person making some contribution to the product's design and subsequent improvement.

The creation of personal relationships that will energize your career begins while you're still in school, where you work in small teams to complete challenging projects. It continues throughout your professional life. You create your own opportunities as you join and become an active participant in a variety of different networking organizations.