27A- Reading Reflection No. 1

The book I read was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. The overall theme I took away from this book was creating and sustaining personal growth through mental outlooks. The book talked a lot about the mindset and self-statements needed to mentally be prepared to succeed. This was even true for the physical traits that we should spend time on by creating a system rather than a goal. 

The book definitely enhanced a lot of my learning from this course. One of the main takeaways I got from this class is that entrepreneurship is a never-ending process. Scott Adams reinforced this idea towards personal development through his talk about creating a system. A system is consistent which is needed for growth. Constant and consistent work on someone's development will allow this to carry over towards business opportunities. Another takeaway that the book enhanced from the course was the ability to fail. Regardless of what someone is doing, they will fail at one point or another. Using failure as a tool for growth is the only way to ensure failure can be a positive. 

Reading this book helped me understand the value of energy. Scott Adams used his energy level to determine his tasks rather than planning everything out specifically. For example, Adams used mornings to creative work because that is when he had peak energy. Later in the day when he had less energy, he would do busy work. The exercise that I would create based off of this is an energy measurement. I think it would valuable for everyone to track their energy level on a scale from 1-10 every hour during a normal day to find when their energy peaks. This can be used to determine when they should be performing different types of tasks. 

The biggest surprise from reading this book was to "fake it until you make it." I have never agreed with or liked this saying. Even in many of my classes this was discouraged. However, in this book Adams makes a great point about doing this for shy people. He said that sometimes it is easier to act as someone else, so acting as someone who is not shy will allow someone to develop their speaking skills and confidence. He also said that acting as someone else allows a person to escape their comfort zone with less resistance.