27A Reading Reflection No. 3

Book: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams

What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general theme of the book is finding success through our failures. Adams talks about his life, challenges he has overcome, and explained his failures. He describes the strategies he used to embrace this failure and use it to his advantage to help him be a successful comic strip writer. The takeaways from this book for me is not following goals but using systems, focusing on your personal energy, and faking it till you make it.

How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book connected and enhanced what we learned in class by emphasizing the point of embracing failure In this class, Professor Pryor encourages us to take risks as an entrepreneur. This is the best time for us to take these risks and fail because the impact is not that huge and will only help get us better. The failures that we encounter early, will allow us to learn from our mistakes and apply them to future decisions.

If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I designed an exercise based on this book, I would make an activity focused on taking risks and being more comfortable. I would ask students to identify 5 things/skills they are bad at or fear and challenge them to do an activity or a job that addresses one of the skills/things. After, I would ask them how they felt after taking the risks and did it help them be more comfortable with trying new things.

What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The biggest surprise moment of this book is Scott telling us to be selfish. We need to make sure that we check on ourselves and that we are good physically and mentally. He realizes that looking after yourself is key because without doing that you aren’t operating properly. Usually in life being selfish has a negative view, but in the book selfishness is good. Adams talks about how you need to focus on yourself first and make sure that you are good in place, before you start helping others. If you’re not together, how can you help someone else? I definitely loved this and agree with his point.