One of the ideas I’ve been pondering over recently is the role of luck in our professional lives. By this, I mean the random encounters or relationships that end up changing the course of our careers. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Operator Summit, a day-long meeting of CEOs and COOs. What struck me was how often the very influential speakers on stage would credit a single person for having taken a chance on them, as creating a transformative moment in their careers. Claire Hughes Johnson, COO of Stripe, for example, talked about how her business school classmate referred her into Google when she arrived in California after managing an unsuccessful political campaign (I share a few other lessons from the Operator Summit here).
If you think back on your work history, how often did the best opportunities come to you through a friend, colleague, or fellow alum? I got my job at the World Bank through a college alum, got introduced to my consulting firm in DC through a friendly neighbor, landed my first project in tech through a friend from grad school, and got my last job, as the first business hire of a startup, through our wedding officiant. The most interesting opportunities aren’t the ones you find posted on a public website – they flow through people networks.
For many of us though, making new connections that lead to these fortuitous opportunities becomes less of a priority. We juggle more responsibilities at work and home, and as a result, the time we dedicate to cultivating new relationships dwindles. However, in keeping our social and professional circles tight, we decrease our exposure to serendipity.
In the past month, members and companies in the Renaissance Collective have made dozens of valuable new connections for each other. We’ve become a meeting point for people who have common interests -- in autonomous vehicles, micromobility, and seed stage investing. Members have extended their personal and professional networks to other members and shared events that they’ve curated and vetted with the community.
Seeing all of this happen organically has made me confident that the Renaissance Collective community can be a conduit for institutionalizing the luck we’ve all experienced in one form or another. Instead of hoping you’ll bump into someone who ends up being a mentor, future coworker, or investor, you can do more to open yourself up to luck. You can invite it in by accelerating the frequency in which you meet great people.
The vision of the Renaissance Collective is crystallizing as we focus on creating value for the folks in our community. So much of the “oh you should really meet so-and-so” connections happen in our heads because we humans are really good at making less-structured, more ambiguous relationship connections. However, as we go about our daily lives, it’s not top-of-mind for us to think about ways we can be helpful by making mutually beneficial connections. Having a community where connecting the dots between people is the norm, generates a flywheel of network-extending interactions that surfaces the most interesting opportunities.
If you know someone who would benefit from this community of ambitious, smart generalists, feel free to share this post with them. I’m also happy to take personal email introductions to answer any questions.
Grateful to be a part of this community!
Jen