Reading Reflection No. 2

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

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

-The general theme in the book was all about the methods of finding success that are found through failure. The book has so many tips that are not obvious. One of my favorites was that goals do nothing. Adams extends on this with the example that the goal of losing ten pounds does nothing without implementing the system of eating healthy.

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

-The book is about how failure stems success. Throughout this class I have learned that entrepreneurship involves so much failure. Learning from failure and continuing is the biggest commonality between this book and this course. 

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

-My exercise would be to first blindly name the first ten tips for success you are able to think of. Before I read this book, I would have named something like dress for success. Then compare your list to the hundreds of tips in the book. Many of them will not overlap because of how different these tips are- but they make sense! 

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?

-I was surprised at how funny Scott Adams was. He talks about a fairly stale or serious topic but his personal experiences add a lot of humor to the book and make it an easy read. Like I mentioned above, I was very surprised by almost all of the tips. They were so different from all of the ones I have heard before. For example, Adams says that every new skill you require in essence doubles your chance of success. Once you learn one thing, it will be so much easier to learn the next. I have trouble with this in school as I will look at summaries or the syllabus for the class and get extremley overwhelmed. I need to realize that with everything you learn, you grow, and things will become easier.