Assignment 27A: Reading Reflection No. 3

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

By: Scott Adams

General Theme/Argument of the Book

            The general theme of the book is finding a model for future successes in life and realizing that failures are an important part of success. Adams stated many times that failure is a tool and not an outcome; one needs to cultivate a relationship with their failures and extract value from it. This value will greatly help one succeed in future endeavors. Adams also gives many examples of how he found systems that have helped in life and gave specific examples of failures and setbacks he faced.

Connection with ENT3003

            While reading this book, I found quite a few connections with the ENT3003 course. The first was the idea of inviting failure. We have had many assignments in this course so far and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has messed up on an assignment, maybe had to cycle through many ideas before settling on one, or even have had someone post a comment that gave good advice, but did not want to use it. This class and all the assignments reflect on the inviting failure idea: we must use it to better ourselves and make improvements, no matter how hard it hurts to be wrong.

            Adams also emphasized hard work over passion and this class requires hard work in order to keep up with the assignments. If one wants to use this class as a foundation for an idea, passion alone will not drive them to success because passion can fizzle. One must be able to work hard to gather all the information, create a prototype, and see the idea take off.

            One section in chapter 20 really stood out to me and the section was about public speaking. Adams described a public speaking course in which one of his fellow classmates had a very big fear of speaking. As he put it, she crashed and burned when it was her time to speak, but he professor told her that what she did was very brave. This empowered the student and helped her eventually volunteer to speak during class. This reminded me of those darn elevator pitches (still my least favorite assignments). The elevator pitches pulled a lot of people from their comfort zones and it is important to realize that it takes courage to do that. I felt even better during the last pitch.

Exercise

            In the very beginning of the book, Adams mentions that passion is not a great driving force for success. The real heart lies in hard work. The exercise that I would create would revolve around this concept. For the first part of the assignment, students would describe an idea or opportunity that they are passionate about. They would then describe how they would bring this idea into fruition. Finally, either in this assignment or another (after some thought was given) they would reflect on their passion and be asked if they think passion alone would drive their opportunity/idea to success or maybe it would require more work than they thought. Hopefully, the students would realize that while passion is important it cannot take the place of determination and work.

Aha Moment

            My aha moment while reading the book was when Adams said that systems work better than goals when it comes to success. I thought, that is crazy because everyone tells you from childhood that you should set a goal and reach for it. However, as I continued reading the book I realized that this idea was true. Systems become habit, you get in a groove. Goals are temporary and sometimes if you are not in the right mindset you can mentally adjust them the wrong way. What I mean by that is let’s say your goal is to be able to run a half marathon. As you start your program you might realize that the feat is harder than you think and you might mentally change that goal to a 15k and then a 10k and then a 5k. You have just moved your goal down by 10 miles because self-doubt crept in. This can happen too with a start-up business or idea. Creating a system will help you stay consistent with work and allow failures to become a natural part of the cycle. You can look forward to milestones when they are reached and not let self-doubt impact you.