Reading Reflection No. 2

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

• I read How To Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. This book is about learning how to invite failure, embrace it, and then use it to your advantage. In the book, Adams talks about how throughout his life he has found unlikely success within the context of his most embarrassing failures. One of the best strategies he shares in the book is that it serves you well to study the ways of others who have made it big or that you wish to be like, and learn from there experiences to help you form your own strategies and special tricks. Throughout the book he shares many of the failures that ultimately led to his success, while also sharing some of the lessons he has learned about staying motivates, healthy, and happy.

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

• This book connected with and enhanced what I am learning in ENT 3003 because it really illustrated the life of an entrepreneur. So often when we are young we want to just reach success as fast as possible. We want to be making six figures by 30. We don't want to have to go through the struggles and the failures that come with that. We want to just immediately be successful. But this book really explains the crucial role that failure plays in our ultimate success. The book goes through Adams experience through many different jobs, failed startups, and useless patents, which ultimately led him to creating Dilbert, a comic strip that has been in circulation now for over 30 years. It was not only inspiring to me, but it made be feel relieved knowing that I don't have to have it all figured out yet. 

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

• Adams talks a lot about failure always bringing him something valuable with it. He says he doesn't let it leave until he has extracted that value from it. If I were to design an exercise for the class based on this book, it would involve Adams strategy of inviting failure in, embracing it, and then "picking its pocket." In other words, I would have the class make a list of their failures. From there I would have them pick a few failures to focus in on. Then, I would have them figure out the value that came out of those failures. 

4) 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 'aha' moment for me when reading this book came from this quote, "The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends. If you neglect your health or your career, you slip into the second category - stupid - which is a short slide to becoming a burden on society." I'm a big believer in living holistically and that everything you do is interconnected. But, I never really thought about how my making time for working out out or meal prepping healthy food could also be impacting how I'm doing in my classes or how I accomplishing other projects that I'm working on. Out of the four things he pointed out as necessary selfishness, for me spending quality time with my friends and family often gets pushed to the back burner. I make time for fitness, eating health, and pursuing my career/school, but oftentimes I don't have much extra time for anything else. This book reminded me that those things, while they are selfish in nature, are super important to being able to achieve your goals and pick yourself up after getting knocked down by failures.