21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

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

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

The general theme of the book was basically covering a whole bunch of different points about life and how to be more successful (depending on your own definition of success) in our lives and how our own pre-conceived notions of achieving this thing we all strive for is most likely wrong. For example, he talked about wishing and deciding. Most people wish they were rich and famous, but the people that actually decide that they will become rich and famous are the ones that will most likely be that.

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

As previously mentioned, Adams brings up a point of differentiation between deciding and wishing. I feel that knowing the difference between these two really sets apart a successful entrepreneur from a failure. We are learning to become deciders in ENT 3003, which is the path to success. Entrepreneurs are key examples of people that will decide to become rich or to have a successful business and then make it happen instead of just wishing for things to hopefully swing their way. From all of the assignments we have done in the past we are creating a system of habits and skills that will help us deciders in naturally accomplishing those goals that previously set before us.

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

There's a section in the book where the author makes a point about knowing exactly what he would be doing at 6:20 am on a Saturday in 2017 (book written in 2013). He said that he would be working on a cartoon that he started earlier that week because that's what he always does at that time. He believes in the system of just doing things, so I would create an exercise for this class based on the book for the reader to envision themselves 5 years into the future and write what they think they would be doing on an exact date. This would require a lot of clarity to do, but I feel that entrepreneurs really need to think like this order to succeed in the future.

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 in the entire book was reading about the differentiation about systems and goals. Scott doesn't believe in the idea of just focusing on goals, but he believes in just focusing in on the process and system and the goal will just naturally follow behind. The systems are daily habits that one creates in order to set themselves up to achieve their goals. This really surprised me because growing up you always hear that you should set big goals in your life and then strive to make those goals, but the author is saying to do it almost in reverse. This kind of perplexed me at first, but in the end I think it makes a lot of sense. For instance, I played baseball growing up and one of my first goals I set for myself when I was little was to hit a home run. I put way too much focus on swinging for the fences and didn't have much success, until I put the work in and focused on the process of hard work and practice that would naturally get me to my goal. Eventually when I was able to free my thoughts from just worrying about the outcome, I actually hit my first home run.