August 10, 2012 at 1:14 PM

Tomorrow on the show, I will interview Tony Tjan, CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball, vice chairman of the advisory firm Parthenon, and the coauthor of the new book HEART, SMARTS, GUTS and LUCK. What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur And Build a Great Business.

The book has a free Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test that will reveal which of the four traits are dominant in you so I decided to take the test at HSGL.com

I found it to be accurate and insightful so I'll share my results here.

Turns out I am slightly more HEART dominant than LUCK dominant.  I dont believe in LUCK but the authors don't really either but went with this term.

Here is what the test sent back to me. 

Heart Dominant individuals are the artists of the business world. You're probably destined to be (or already are) some amalgam of founder, iconoclast, and visionary. You may be stubborn when it comes to your idea, but it is because you already have the three-act narrative bursting inside your head. And it's an authentic narrative with nuance, feeling, and reasons for all of its particularities. You care deeply about what you are doing and can extemporaneously express your vision to anyone who will listen. The driving hunger is to translate that passion into reality and to make a change bigger than just your product. The journey towards achieving your goal is a rewarding experience in and of itself, and you tend to value the intrinsic (e.g. the sense of a meaningful role) as much as the extrinsic (e.g. money). Whether you are starting or you are doing, you are inspired by a deep purpose that drives your decision-making ahead of everything else.

The challenges for you as a Heart dominant individual might come at a critical inflection point of business growth, most commonly when it is time to scale an idea.  At this juncture, hard work is sometimes confused with progress and systems and processes can be at odds, and seen as bureaucracy, with a Heart-driven leadership style that is often founder-led (and dependent). In other instances, genuine purpose and passion isn’t enough to make up for deficiencies in organizational structure, one of accountability needed to scale. And perhaps most important to note: sometimes the market realities just aren’t in sync with your passion – at the end of the day, the commercial reality of whether customers want or don’t want what you have needs to be faced. Building a complementary team (and entrusting them with responsibility) and balancing idealism with excellence in scaled-execution are key for the long-term success of the Heart-driven.

Luck Dominant Some people wonder how you got to be so lucky. Things have just tended to work out for you – whether through a fortuitous relationship, an unexpected opportunity, or sheer happenstance. Whether you have been aware of it or not, you have probably influenced your luck. In our research, it is clear that most Luck dominant individuals are defined by a similar set of core attributes.

Luck is a combination of a Lucky Attitude and a Lucky Network. There are many things that make up this Lucky Attitude, but most important is the trifecta of humility, intellectual curiosity, and optimism. Humility is about awareness of your own limitations; appreciation of the broader efforts of those around you; and a nonjudgmental stance. You likely have enough self-confidence to win the respect of others, but that confidence is counterbalanced with the recognition that there is so much more you don’t know. Intellectual curiosity is an active response to your humility. You have a voracious desire to learn more about just about anything, maybe devouring books, listening to suggestions, or tirelessly exploring new ideas. In the end, thanks to your willingness to meet new people, ask new questions, and go to new places, you have a greater chance of being exposed to and rewarded by Luck.

If humility is the foundation for intellectual curiosity, then optimism gives you the belief, inspiration, and energy to realize new possibilities. You are by nature an optimist.  It is a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy: more Luck tends to come to those people who believe in possibility.

You pair this attitude with a Lucky Network. That is, the slice of your relationship network that seems more serendipitous, less predictable, and more orthogonal than a set of ‘powerful’ networking contacts.  Put another way, your relationship network is created less through networking and simply the by-product of you spending time with people you like.   Characteristics that define your outlook on relationships include a wiliness to express vulnerability, generosity, authenticity, and openness. Because of this, you have had at times what looks to be the good fortune of knowing people who can help you with your goals – in fact it is likely that you have several “wild card” relationships that will bring about unpredictable but positive impacts to your business endeavors and your life in general.

So, can you have 'too much Luck?' What about 'bad luck?' Our advice is simple. if you don’t have the passion to engage or the smarts to find your way, all that luck may be worthless. And as far as 'bad luck' goes, it’s simply a matter of having a baseline of the 'good luck' factors to be self-aware and ready for the world: read broadly, be curious, and nurture those relationships that will be crucial to your success.

What trait is most dominant in you?

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