Reading Reflection No. 2

The general theme of the book was that even though you may fail at everything, you can still be successful in life. The author of the book Scott Adams has had many failures in his corporate career, inventions, investments, and two restaurants, but still was able to come out of the rut. He is known as the creator of the comic character Dilbert.

This book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big connected with this class because it gave me life and career tips that would aid in my success as an Entrepreneur. For example, he told a story about one of his college friends teaching him a lesson in regards to overcoming being shy. He said, “the secret of overcoming shyness by imagining you are acting instead of interacting,” so pretend you’re someone else, someone who is confident. In other words fake it until you make, so if I’m not one hundred percent confident when speaking to others I can incorporate this method to boost my confidence.  

An exercise for this class that I would design based on this book would be for students to get out into the community and interview successful business or career individuals. Within their interview I would like them to ask these people what hardships or ups and downs did they have to  overcome to get where they are at today. From this exercise I believe students will learn that success is not a linear progression, but a very curvy line.

The 'aha' moment when reading this book was when Scott talked about an exercise he does before he goes to bed to increase his positive thoughts. I myself have been looking for ways to increase my so called positive vibes while decreasing my negative thoughts. This exercise of writing down three things that went well today and why they went well is something I have started incorporating into my daily routine since reading this book. Scott was right, that this exercise gives you a chance to look outside yourself and be appreciative of life’s happy moments.