Assignment 21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

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

1) The general theme of this book is how the author learned to take care of himself first, so then eventually he could go from loss to loss, until eventually, he won big. Adams shares his story about how he kept himself happy, motivated and healthy through this difficult time of failing. The successive failures in his life mounted up and it all eventually led to his success in life. He suggests that you need to first look after yourself and your life before you look to anyone else. The reason for this is because if you don’t look after yourself first you will become a burden on your friends and family. The author shares a strategy of inviting failure into his life, embracing that failure and then overcoming it to ultimately succeed in life. Which he makes choices in his life to maximize his energy so then it will be easier to manage other priorities in your life.

2) In my opinion, the book connected with and enhanced what I am learning in ENT 3003 by it shows that through perseverance and pushing through the tough times makes you a better person and leads to success. The book enhanced that tenacity is very important for someone to have especially as an entrepreneur. You need to be very determined in your life if you want to succeed either with a new product or in school. Success is not wished for or given; you must pursue it effectively with a schedule that keeps you on track. This book has connected with my knowledge from this course and showing that your mindset and determination are vital in everything you do.

3) After reading this book, the exercise that I would is for the entire class to pick something that they are good or successful at and take that feeling of success and apply it to something else in their life. Then after doing that, the class will reflect on the steps that they took to apply the success and the outcome. If the student fails at applying the success to something else, then they can embrace it and reflect on what they have learned and what they’ll do differently. All the exercise parts will be included in a blog post. The blog post will allow other students in the class to read about other students’ experiences. This exercise is about how to apply a successful mindset to life because success can be habit-forming. You may not succeed, but that is a part of life, what you must do next is get back up, and learn from it for the future.

4) I learned from the book is it constantly states to look after yourself or in words from the book to have a selfish form outlook on life. This outlook is something different from my expectations because throughout my life I have been taught to look after your friend and family first before yourself. Most people I know are not selfish, so at first, reading this and going through some of the book I was surprised that the author said to be selfish. However, after reading the book more and understanding what the author was explaining I agree with the author’s point of view. For example, one of my favorite statements from Scott Adams was, “The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your friends and family.” This statement resonated with me and I believe it is a great philosophy for some to live their life.