27A Reading Reflection 3

The book I read for this assignment is How to Fail at almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.

1. I found that the books general theme was that the best thing you can do is to just decide what you want to do in life and try your best to do it, not just wait around for it to happen. Another theme in the book is that you must embrace failure. The book shows many examples of failure from Scott Adams life that begins when he's a kid until being a well established adult with a career. Adams explains that when an individual has the ability to learn from his or her failures and mistakes, they are capable of achieving great success in their future. 
2. I immediately noticed many connections between the book and what we are learning in our class, ENT3003. First, it has been discussed in this class how entrepreneurs fail all of the time, and this was also talked about in the book. I was surprised to learn from the reading that nearly 90% of entrepreneurs fail within the first five years of beginning a business. I believe that it is important that we begin to change out beliefs of failure form something negative to something positive and learn from our mistakes. 
3. If I had to design an exercise form this reading for our class, I would ask the class to come up with five times in their lives they had failed. I would have students describe what it is that they failed at, explain why they did, and then I would challenge them to try completing those failed tasks again until they succeed. 
4. It was hard to find a big surprise or “aha moment” in the reading, only because many of Adam’s ideas and beliefs align with my own. However, it was comforting to read about how so many successful people fail throughout their life but with motivation, drive and patience, they are destined to succeed. It is this that inspired me to learn from my mistakes and strive for success in my future.