Reading Reflection No. 2

I chose to read How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. 

1. The general theme of this book is failure. The book includes Adams talking about his own failure, how he dealt with it, and how he reaped the benefits from every failure he experienced. He also provides different strategies for going about life to make it easier on yourself that he learned along the way. 

2. One of Adams' pieces of advice that he offers in this book is to learn to change your perception. He makes a point of saying that if you are constantly trying to perceive things in a way that makes you happy, then you're likely hiding the truth from yourself. The same applies to many principles of entrepreneurship. When you're developing a product and fleshing out the business model for that product you need to keep an open mind. If you chose to view everything you do as correct (which is very likely not the case) then you'll disservice yourself. Instead, learn to change your mind about things and be open to a constantly evolving idea.

3. A helpful exercise for ENT 3003 based on this book would be Create a System. Adams' talks a lot about creating systems instead of goals. His reasoning behind this is that goals set up a person for failure. Even in the case that you don't eventually fail at a goal, the person is still in a state of "continuous pre-success failure." However, a system sets up an action for someone to achieve while working toward something. While they execute on that system they are achieving consistent success and this is important for maintaining energy and preventing burnout. An ENT 3003 activity based on this concept could be the following. Create a system for your entrepreneurial idea. While creating this system make sure to think about (1) what action(s) will your system complete, (2) how often that action will be repeated, and (3) what will the end result of your system be. It's easy to get tired while constantly fleshing out your everchanging ideas during an entrepreneurial experience so make it easier on yourself by creating a system.

4. My biggest surprise while reading this book was Adams' lesson on selfishness. He says that it's very important to be selfish. Make sure you pay attention to your own health, family, and whatever else may be important to you before focusing on the needs of others. Once your needs are satisfied, then you can spend your energy on others. I was a little surprised by this philosophy but in terms of "taking care of yourself," it makes sense. If you can't take care of yourself then you likely won't be able to take care of others. So, get yourself on the right track first and you'll be able to put that much more into what you're doing for other people.