27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

The book I chose for this assignment was from the second list, 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 of the book was fairly straightforward, that life is full of failures and people will encounter them, but you can still succeed no matter how many failures you overall face. He explains how to prioritize your business/venture as well as yourself to ensure you are putting the best foot forward. He emphasizes that focusing on your well being is the most important factor as you can't focus on leading another entity if you are simply not in the right state to be doing so.

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

• I think this connected surprisingly well to assignment 26 as the assignment is all about failure and the lessons learned, and Scott Adams' book teaches you how to move on from failure and not let it negatively impact you. To succeed you need to take risks, and a lot of the time risk leads to failure. The course has emphasized being a risk seeker as an entrepreneur, because not every entrepreneurial concept will succeed, and to be a successful entrepreneur you need to assess what went wrong and decide if your concept is worth fighting for or if it is dead weight and you should think up a different one.

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

• An exercise I would design would fall along the lines of I would have students think of a time they failed, describe that time, and then think about what their well-being was like at that moment. By this I mean were they eating and sleeping right, were they maintaining a healthy lifestyle, did they have something going on that hindered their success. Overall this exercise would be to find the root of the failure, whether it was an external force or a personal reason.

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?

• My biggest "aha" moment reading this book was in regard to personal well-being. Adams stresses that the entrepreneur's personal well-being needs to be the number one priority because the venture/business/concept will not succeed if the person who is the driving force of it is not well. I never really thought of how failures will be caused by poor self-care because in general, it seems like devoting yourself 24/7 to a concept is the best way to succeed, and Adams argues that is actually the best way to fail.