You've gotta be kidding

Of all that sounds sweet to an entrepreneur's ears, this has got to be the sweetest: "You've gotta be kidding!" It's simple. If you're not drawing gasps from people around you, you're not daring the odds hard enough. And if you're not doing that, you're better off living a life of a fixed-income drone.

That's it. Cest la vie. Does Andrew Davidson say so in this book?

Well, sort of. "Entrepreneurs, they say, break rules. So do criminals, of course, and we lock them up. Let's express it more accurately. Entrepreneurs confound expectations. And they don't buckle under when we ask them to conform." This he writes just before he posits his big theory: "The key to success is failure."

So is this a book about dummy characters who""spiff, plop, boing"" spring right back up like in those cartoons on TV? No, actually, despite the Disneyesque ring to the title, Smart Luck (a slip there and it could've been Fuzzy Duck or something).

For one, it is a British book, about Britons, not Americans. For another, its sympathy for entrepreneurs who get shafted makes up for some of the drivel you encounter, though this comes through only towards the end. You need to be patient.

Meanwhile, Davidson, a British business journalist, chases successes to pinpoint their "luck" factor. Is luck dumb or is it smart? Is it "nature" or "nurture"? Is it your genes or your upbringing?

Is it your dad's semen or your mum's voice? "...or at least some cunning combination of the two" he grants, even as his success stories lean as far away from inborn qualities as possible (somewhat wistfully, it often appears, though).

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, has quite a story. She didn't know that the "father" she knew for 18 years of her life was not her father, till her mother told her that half her genes actually came from the man she took to be her stepfather.

This revelation of truth changed Roddick. It gave her "a sense of the possible", he writes, a new romantic vision of destiny control, a vision that powered her business mind.

So success isn't all in the conception, after all. Or so it seems of Virgin's Richard Branson too. If it hadn't been for his mother Eve's goading him out of his self-consciousness and off his butt as a child, Davidson argues, he wouldn't have got anywhere.

It was his mother's tough neighbourhood love that shaped his attitudes as he grew up. Now all this is way past the womb stage, and that's the idea of smart luck.

Making the most of whatever you get.

Thinking afresh. Loading the dice in one's favour, in a manner of speaking, even if the basic likelihoods are still likelihoods. Luck, in that sense, is still part of it. And will always be. There are uncontrollables all around you.

But then, that's the whole thing about entrepreneurship, isn't it? The thrill of the game. The adrenalin of the challenge. The courage of conviction.

And so, no matter how meagre the resources, how scary the precedents, how lopsided the ratios.

It's like what a startup man once said in quite another context of quantum transformation: the labels on the inputs are not of relevance, so long as the outcome is refreshing to the eyes. SMART LUCK AND THE SEVEN OTHER QUALITIES OF GREAT ENTREPRENEURS

Andrew Davidson
Pearson Power
Price: Rs 250; Pages: 240

OTHER BOOKS

How many Frenchmen does it take to change a light bulb? One. He holds the bulb and all of Europe revolves around him. This summarises this book, the subtitle of which is a dead giver: "How the French invented high fashion, fine food, chic cafes, style, sophistication and glamour."

Kind of suggests that anything from sliced cheese down to gathered skirts originated courtesy the lovely blokes at Palace Vendome. The central character in this book is Louis XIV. He is the purveyor of everything posh.

The last paragraph is a study in supplication: "It was also a display of elegance, glamour and sophisticated style ... proof that the standards of luxury living set during the Versailles era are still alive and well."

Indeed, the only people who won't be alive and well are the damn blokes who buy this book.

THE ESSENCE OF STYLE

Joan DeJean
$25
320 Pages
Free press

Swapan Seth