Reading Reflection No. 1

Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw (Week 7)

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

• What surprised you the most? I am always surprised when I here that someone obscenely rich gives away their fortune.  
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? I admired his problem solving strategies, speficially when dealing with the famous strike of 1892.
• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? I wish he did not sell off his interest in steel to Rockefeller. It removed a lot of his ability to make positive changes. 
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it? He dealt with several catastrophes during his life, including the Johnstown Flood of 1889 and the aforementioned strike.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? He was very sure of his life philosophy. He believed life is split onto three phases and you should work toward the goals of those phases. 

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. Although it expressed what a difficult decision it was, selling his stake in U.S. Steel to the Rockefellers. I understand why he did it, but it is not the choice that I would have made.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why? What do you think of Pittsburgh today and would you change you mind about selling U.S. Steel?

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion? He was an immensely self motivated. One of his most famous quotes is  “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” I believe that we today lack self-accountability in a way that has never existed on this planet before and that we could learn a lot from men like this.