A Book that Breaks Down Your Walls - Adam Grant "How Non-Conformist Move The World"

                                                                                                                                                   6/29/2017

A Book that Breaks Down Your Walls

Adam Grant, a American author and a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and also a CEO, and author of Original; How Non-Conformist Move The World, shows a way to people who willing to be successful in their life by giving a real examples and lived experiences of famous people and also unknown people. While we read this book, we will find our self in a world of successful people, and we will see the steps taken by successful people. Surprisingly, we will witness that they started from the position we are currently in. Also, Grant gives us a chance to see the world with successful people’s eyes by going into detail.

Comparing with the other innovative books, Originals is written for everyone. From entrepreneurs to investors, from parents to kids. Grant encourages people who hesitate to speak up their original idea. According to his idea, everyone can be successful, including entrepreneurs, investors, girls, kids, parents. All we need is to find the best time and best place to take the first step. He advises us to be patient to be successful, even though it takes years. ‘Leonardo Da Vinci set aside the Mona Lisa after starting it in 1503 and didn’t complete it until nearly 16 years later’ (00)

In Grant’s book, we will witness the people that do not give up even though they fail many times. Such as Abraham Lincoln, even though he defeated 10 times in 29 years, he became president. Carmen Medina, Just a random unknown girl like us, she lost her job in CIA just because she spoke up her idea. After 12 years, she became the biggest name in the global security space.

Surprisingly, He refutes the idea that originals are risk-takers. You might be thinking of successful people take a risk and become rich in couple days. No! This is other things that I learned from his book. We will witness how the successful people are not a risk taker and have always second options. Most of them have the second job while they running their own business. It makes me question ‘are they not sure about what they are doing ? or are they expecting to fail ?’ Yes! They do expect to fail. They are the one that takes less risk. As investor Warren Buffet says ‘The less risk you take The more profit you will get.’

Another fascinating thing that he mentions in his book are how important getting feedback from someone else but especially from your enemy. When we get feedback from our friends, it might not be realistic, but if we can get one from our enemy that would be the best feedback ever. Because they do not hesitate to make you sad and tell the truth.

Grant mentions that artistic avocations are part of innovation. When we are running our own business, we should work on it as Art. We should go through every single detail before we start. We will witness the people that work on their product years and comes up with a large number of ideas. “Picasso’s oeuvre includes more than 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, 2,800 ceramics, and 12,000 drawings.” (36)

Grant also states that being last is better than being first to see other’s experiences. He gives us an example about online-shopping and how the first investors failed. Because people were not feeling comfortable for online-shopping in the first time. However, in my opinion, Amazon and eBay are one of the first online shopping websites and they are the best in the online shopping industry. Therefore, this claim is not true for all the time. Sometimes it is better to be first to take the first seats in the market.

His book could be better by focusing the main idea. He uses the same example in many different pages and slightly too much detail for the same person. He could make it clear by eliminating words. Some chapter gets away from the main idea. For example, in the sixth chapter, he talks about being first-born or last-born and the difference between two siblings. Other examples are he talks about how we should treat our kids and teach to make them a better person. This part might be unnecessary for someone that do not have children.

Another thing that he ignores is an opportunity. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same opportunity or capability to be successful. Someone born with luckiness is easy to be successful because they have the opportunity. However, for someone that does not have the opportunity is hard to say that they can be successful. Who does not want to be successful or better in their life?  But sadly, There are some people that are starving. Moreover, some people do not have clear water or food. Therefore, for those people, it is hard to say that they can be successful in their life. If we give everyone same opportunity, then maybe we can say that everyone can be successful…

After all, Even though I have some negative review about the book, I can tell it is one of my favorite books I have read so far, and I am so glad and thankful to the person that had me read this book. What do you expect after you read a book? I expect that the book I read to grow me up or teach me something about life. After I read this book, I can tell I am a different person and I did learn many things that I did not know before. The successful people either known or unknown, they make me think why not me? This book reminds me a proverb “Roma has not been built in a day”. This book definitely worth to read it. Every single person can learn something from this book. I want to thank Adam Grant to share with us his opinion and knowledge.

                                                                                                                 Ridvan Raphael Kol