Have you ever felt like you failed at something? Then you were too afraid to tell someone about it because of the stigma associated with failure? Well, author Kristen Hadeed knows a lot about failing. She started her own house cleaning company in college and did not know the basics of building and running a business. This business venture came with challenges and lessons learned through hardships and disappointments. While acknowledging her accomplishments, Hadeed also emphasized the importance of failure and how failure drives success over time. This book interested me because I am curious about starting my own business. I have my own outdoor fitness studio, and my first couple of classes had some mishaps. I learned from these and reworked the class and tried again. It was hard because I was always afraid of failing and not believing in myself. Reading how she overcame her failures and turned them into successes has inspired me to pursue my dreams and not see the mishaps as something bad but instead as valuable lessons learned.  She offers an insightful perspective on confronting the fear of failure. Hadeed is inspiring and serves as a compelling example to empower entrepreneurial dreams. 

Permission to Screw Up is a very inspiring and knowledgeable book that takes the reader throughout Hadeed’s journey as an entrepreneur. Hadeed was a broke college student that was looking for some extra money to spend on things she enjoyed. After struggling to find a good job, she decided to create her own cleaning service business staffed by college students and offer to clean apartments and houses near campus. At first Hadeed had no idea what she was doing, as she was also a college student herself. In the book she discusses how she became a strong leader and learned from all her failures that made her experiences and leadership skills grow. The book made me feel comfortable with learning about someone else's hiccups and missteps throughout their career. Not everything is as smooth sailing or straightforward as it looks to be. Hadeed was very inspirational throughout the story, telling the reader about the mistakes she made, such as hiring students but never providing them with expectations or support. She also suggested to her readers that it was okay to fail and that it wasn't the end of the world. 

It took Hadeed a lot of persistence over time to become the leader she wanted to be, and at times she still struggled. Hadeed writes engagingly for the reader and is easy to understand, without using a lot of technical management jargon. She made her stories come to life as she did not miss any details in her career and especially emphasized the failures and lessons learned. She also writes in a conversational tone which attracts the reader to her experiences. Hadeed's story was authentic and genuine which made her a relatable storyteller. Readers can relate and understand her stories as she is vulnerable and acknowledges her missteps throughout her career to become a credible author.

The book had many valuable lessons throughout. Hadeed discusses how to lead a diverse team and find new ways to enhance workplace culture and create meaningful connections with the team. Hadeed gave many great examples of when and how she used her leadership skills and learned through trial and error. Her key message is the importance of embracing failure as a stepping stone to success and learning from one's own mistakes. As Hadeed says in her own words, “I don’t know where the future will take me, but one thing I do know (for sure) is this: Wherever I go, I’ll be screwing up left and right, and every step of the way, there will be people screwing up right along with me. As we go, we will continue to learn, grow, and build better companies together” (Hadeed, 2017, p.243). 

Hadeed’s journey provides insight for aspiring entrepreneurs and future leaders. The book is balanced in its approach and provides a well-rounded depiction of Hadeed’s journey from start to finish. While it focuses on her personal experiences, it also goes into a deeper context of leadership and entrepreneurship. Permission to Screw Up is a book that is inspiring and educating to anyone interested in creating a business of their own or is interested in learning about the process of starting a business with nothing but an idea. Nothing ever goes perfectly, and failure is a part of life and how you learn to become stronger. 

Permission to Screw Up has several important takeaways for the reader. The first takeaway is that managers need to make clear expectations so they feel that they are in control. This was one thing Hadeed always struggled with as a manager. Her employees often overlooked her ability to lead and were not putting in the right amount of effort needed to help the team succeed which caused more problems for Hadeed. Another important lesson shared by Hadeed is that people benefit from feedback. Throughout the book, Hadeed stresses the importance of letting somebody know when they are doing something wrong. Hadeed would meet other successful leaders and learn their different ways of giving feedback and corrections to her employees. She mentions a situation where she was introduced to a man named Bob Chapman, the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller. He taught Hadeed many valuable lessons about helping others thrive using a technique called “F.B.I”. This abbreviation stands for Feeling-Behavior-Impact. This technique introduced a way of communicating and giving truly effective feedback to handle frustrations and to handle difficult situations with employees. Another important takeaway from this book is that Hadeed feels it is important to dream with your employees. She makes it a priority to help her employees create a vision for their future. She feels it is important to give employees a chance to talk about their dreams and was surprised by how inspired people became. She often held group retreats with her employees and was excited to see how the team grew afterwards. They talked about the future, created a shared vision, and left the retreat feeling excited about getting back and putting their plans into action. This is something I hope to use some day when I am a business leader. 

I really enjoyed reading this book. Not only was it insightful, but it was full of personal and engaging stories that a reader can understand. Each page had an exciting lesson from her journey of creating a business to personal stories and showing the step-by-step processes that she used to help dig herself out of holes she had created while growing her business. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to lead a high performing team and to understand that failures are needed for success.