Reading Reflection

The thing that surprised me the most about Berry Gordy was that he initially wished to be a boxer.  He wanted to be a boxer as well as a musician when he was in his teens, he decided that boxers could only fight every few months while musicians could play everyday so he decided to chase his dream as a musician.  The thing that I admire most about Berry Gordy was that he never let the opinions of others discourage him from following his dreams, even when he was peer pressured into getting a “real job” he was still making efforts to write songs.  What I admire the least about Berry Gordy was that he seemed almost too focused on his career to truly spend time with his children, but this could simply be attributed to the way that he presented the story of his life.  Berry Gordy encountered much adversity in his life, he never let it get him down, through all of his failures he never stopped trying to be successful.  Even his divorce was a driving force for his career. I noticed that Berry Gordy exhibited the competency of tenacity very well, as previously mentioned he never let his failures stop him from being successful.  I also noticed that he did a very good job at adapting to his customer base, although when he first opened his first record store he was stubborn, he finally realized that the customer is always right, and that you can’t force a need.  One part of the reading that was confusing to me was why he went through so many different names for his company. Sometimes it even seemed as though he was having two names for the same company at the same time.  If I were able to ask Berry Gordy two questions I would ask him how he always found the drive to get back up after failure, and also how he identified musical talent so well.  I think that Berry Gordy has a positive outlook on hard work while still recognizing the comedy in the struggle and sacrifices related to the hard work, I notice this mostly when he talks about the sacrifices he had to make when training to be a boxer.