27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

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

I chose to read the book titled How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big which is a memoir on Scott Adams who was a cartoonist. He said that it is important to be patient and gave many examples of famous and successful people who were patient and did not become famous until after the age of 30. Adams discussed how he became the creator of a very popular cartoon named Dilbert office carton.

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

I think this book connected well with ENT 3003 because this book as well as the class both echoed that many entrepreneurs have to fail many times before they come up with the big idea. It is not easy to come up with an entrepreneurial idea that will be successful, and Scott Adams proves this point through his real-life experiences.

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

I would design an exercise that everyone had to submit five failures they have had throughout their life and then say what that failure helped them learn about themself and if they were able to eventually overcome that failure and turn it into a success.

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 very surprised to read that that Harrison Ford was a carpenter at the age of 30. Also, Andrea Bocelli was still playing piano in small bars at the age of 33 and Mary Kay sold books door to door until she was 45.

Comments

  1. Joseph PlotkinApril 19, 2020 at 1:50 PM

    Michael,

    Interesting what you took away from reading this book. I feel like nobody wants to fail in life, but failure is what drives you to be a better person and make better decisions. I remember so many times in life that I've failed. Looking back it probably wasn't failure but it impacted me to negatively that I thought it was. But you will learn eventually is that everyone fails in different ways. This is how you learn from your mistakes. I think Scott Adams teaches us many things in this book and the most important thing we need to takeaway is that failure is always possible.

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  2. The Mainzer PostApril 20, 2020 at 12:11 AM

    Michael,

    This was a great choice of a book. This book highlights a very valuable trait as you mentioned above which is patience. Patience is something that I along with many other people often struggle with. Patience is something that you have to train yourself and it takes time. Failure as you mentioned is also very common especially in entrepreneurship. Most entrepreneurs fail many times before they succeed. Failure is a great thing because you learn something new every time you fail.

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